The Breathless Hush #2
Collin sank down beside River, fretful fingers pulling at the bark. The roughness bit into his skin, grounding him while everything inside felt splintered. He wanted to speak, to reach across the space between them, but the words stuck like stones in his throat.
“If a merchant cheated him, I paid. Late? He’d beat me.” River’s fingers traced the welt on his arm. “He took everything out on me.”
Aries muttered, “We should’ve done something.”
Collin shredded a leaf, his gut burning. “We guessed.”
River stared into the trees. “People knew. Even Doctor Fol offered me a bed.”
“You didn’t deserve this,” Collin said gruffly.
River shrugged. “When I was little, he’d chase me with a stick. Beat me where I hid. If I cried, it got worse. Saying it aloud—finally—feels like breathing.”
“I always felt so small,” River whispered. “Sometimes there wasn’t even a reason. I’d be doing schoolwork and he’d start screaming. I never knew why. Why does he hate me? What did I do?”
Collin swallowed hard. “You didn’t do anything. It wasn’t about you. He hurt you because you were the one thing in his life he could control.”
River closed his eyes. “Control,” he repeated, as though the word were a bad taste.
Aries leaned forward. “What happened today?”
“One of the dogs spilled the goat’s milk,” River said. “He dragged me inside by my hair. And as he raised his hand, I saw it—I saw that he can still hurt me, but he can’t take anything real. Not anymore.”
Collin’s throat remained tight, and the weight of helplessness pressed in.
River stood abruptly, calling the dogs. “Come on. The others are waiting.”
“You don’t have to—” Collin began.
“Life goes on,” River said with a shaky smile. “Let’s hunt.”
As they neared the familiar edge of the hunting grounds, distant voices began to carry through the trees—laughter, shouts, someone calling out in triumph. The sounds echoed off trunks and moss, bright and careless, like nothing in the world had gone wrong.
Collin paused for a moment, listening.
“We’ll find them faster if we split up,” Aries said.
River gave a quick nod, then whistled sharply.
His dogs tore ahead, barking like their lives depended on it, vanishing into the underbrush.
River followed close behind, his long strides sure despite everything that weighed on him.
It struck Collin—how easily he slipped back into motion, as if survival were just instinct by now.
Then Aries let out a whoop, unsheathed a knife, and took off after them with a battle cry that was more joy than fury.
The trees rose like dark towers around him, their branches laced high overhead, blotting the sun into shifting patches of light. Collin glanced behind him—no sign of anyone. The hush pressed in close.
No birdsong. No rustling brush. Just the soft crunch of his own footsteps and the low murmur of the creek beside him. The silence wasn’t peaceful. It was too complete, like the forest had paused its breath.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was still carrying River’s story in his bones. He shook his head, tried to chase it off with thoughts of boar meat sizzling over coals. A feast, laughter. The normal kind of hunger.
He followed the creek’s bend, eyes scanning the undergrowth. Then—movement.
A thud in the brush, followed by a violent rustle.
His muscles tensed just as a large boar burst through a tangle of branches—snorting, bristling, eyes locked on him.
The thing looked furious, its curved tusks glinting like knives.
Foam clung to its mouth, and it scraped a hoof against the earth, readying to charge.
Collin stepped back instinctively, heart jerking upward in his chest.
So much for calm.
Did boars even see well? Its eyes were tiny—shiny black buttons set deep in that hulking body, too small for a creature that massive.
Collin barely had time to take in the rest: its snorting breaths, the twitch of its bristled back, the way it pawed the leaves with a hoof that, for a fleeting second, seemed almost comical in contrast to its rage.
Then it charged.
Collin stumbled back, breath catching. He had no weapon. No time to run. It would outrun him anyway. The only chance—
He scrambled up the nearest tree, bark scraping his palms. Just as he hauled himself onto the lowest branch, something moved above him.
A blur. A shape. A heavy exhale from the leaves overhead—and then a massive shadow dropped past him, fast as a falling stone.
The sound that followed cracked the silence wide open, a shriek so high and raw it didn’t sound like any living thing.
The shadow hit the forest floor with bone-jarring weight. Collin clung to the branch, heart thundering, eyes wide.
A panther.
Sleek, immense, all muscle and grace. Her paws pinned the boar in a heartbeat. Her back arched and rolled with power as her teeth sank into the thick hide. The growl she loosed shook deep in Collin’s ribs—it sounded like the forest itself growling through her.
He couldn’t look away.
There was blood, thrashing limbs, the helpless squeal of the boar brought low. And still, Collin was rooted to the branch—part fear, part awe.
She was a storm draped in muscle. A queen taking what was hers.
The boar stilled.
She turned.
As if she’d felt his gaze. As if she’d known he was there all along.
The panther’s great black head swiveled slowly, eyes catching the light like molten gold. Her gaze locked onto him—silent, unblinking. It wasn’t curiosity. It was calculation. And Collin’s mind emptied, wiped clean by the sheer power of her stare.
Her tail flicked once. Then again. A slow, rhythmic swish that built toward something terrible. The muscles across her back and haunches gathered, coiling tight.
She was going to leap.
Behind his ribs, a jolt—primal, instinctive, alive. He didn’t think. Didn’t plan. Just reached. His fingers scraped bark as he hauled himself higher.
A crack. The branch gave out beneath him, and he slipped.
The growl that followed made his blood turn to glass. He didn’t breathe. Couldn’t.
And then—
Pain.
Iron claws sank through his back. A blast of breath scorched the side of his neck.
The weight of her—massive, inescapable—dragged him downward. The branch vanished beneath him. Air tore from his lungs in a single gasp as he hit the ground hard, the world exploding into dirt and sound and stars.
He didn’t move.
Couldn’t.
He was sure—absolutely sure—he was dead. No one survived a forest panther. Not in stories. Not in real life.
He waited for the tearing. For claws to shred through muscle, for teeth to crack bone. Waited for the pain that should have already come.
But nothing happened.
The stillness pressed in.
Then—salt. Copper. Blood.
The taste shocked Collin back into his body. His lip was bleeding. His heart—was beating. Fast, wild, slamming against his ribs like it wanted out. Could a dead boy feel that?
His breath caught. Slowly, carefully, he peeled his eyes open.
And stared straight into gold.
The panther’s gaze was locked on his—unblinking. Immense. Eternal.
Collin flung himself backward, scrambling through wet leaves and tangled roots. Twigs snapped under his palms. Breath tore from his throat.
But she didn’t pounce.
She didn’t move.
Her eyes didn’t shift. Her chest didn’t rise. One paw lay still against the earth.
Then he saw it—the arrow. A single shaft, blue-feathered, sunk clean into the back of her skull.
He blinked. Once. Twice. It wasn’t a dream. The arrow was real. The panther was dead.
His eyes searched the trees.
And found her.
Still as a statue between two trunks, bow lowered, hair loose down her back.
Dragonfly.
Collin stumbled upright and ran. He didn’t think, just flung himself into her arms. She dropped the bow as he crashed into her.
Her body trembled against his; his own hands shook as they gripped her tightly, grounding himself in her warmth, her breath, the impossible rhythm of life still beating between them.
They didn’t speak. No words were necessary. The pounding of his heart answered the drumming of her pulse. The gasping of his lungs echoed the shuddering of her breath. The shaking of his limbs matched the quaking of her embrace.
He was still alive. Still breathing. Still standing—because of her.
Collin pulled her closer, tighter, and she didn’t pull away. His thoughts spiraled like wind-tossed leaves. His heart galloped, wild and grateful, because she had come just in time.
Time slowed. His breathing slowed. The soft voices of birds returned, one simple note at a time. Twigs snapped, voices echoed through the forest. Dragonfly shifted in his arms, and he reluctantly let her go.
There was blood on her hands. It was his blood. He took her hands and wiped her palms with the hem of his shirt. He looked into her eyes, dark and overcast with terror. “Are you alright?”
Dragonfly met his gaze. She nodded, but she couldn’t yet speak. As their friends thrust into their midst, she gently tugged her hands out of his grasp.
Hadria’s scream shattered the stillness.
Collin flinched as her voice cut through the trees like glass. His ears rang.
“What happened?” Aries yelled, boots pounding through the underbrush.
Hadria clapped both hands over her mouth, eyes wide. “Were you attacked? Oh god—are you hurt?”
River’s dogs exploded into snarls at the panther’s body, lunging against their collars. “Girls—no!” River shouted, but the barking drowned him out.
Arion stumbled in, breathless. “Collin—I still have your spear!”
“Unarmed,” Hadria shrieked, “He was unarmed?!”
“Whoa, look at the size of that thing!” Aries shouted.
Lekyi pushed past the others. “You could have been killed!”
More shouting. More voices. Hadria again, “Are you bleeding? Are you injured?”