Ravage (Thistle and Fang #1)
Prologue
CAS
Run.
Three letters. One word.
Blindly, on four white paws. In the black of night through the narrow streets that I barely see or take in. I know them well, or once did. It seems longer than mere months since I last saw them.
Something familiar catches my eye, blurry but unmistakable, and I skid to a halt, narrowly avoiding a collision with a rubbish bin.
The corner pub—with its murmur of voices drifting from within—is one I’ve been to before.
The old-fashioned wooden sign hanging above the door is cracked down the middle, its chains rusted.
Character, my a-dad once called it. Run-down, my o-father scoffed in response.
They’d taken me there for my first pint when I turned eighteen. That night, like tonight, had been a new moon, the misty stars bright in the darkness.
Gone, all the things I once had. The people I loved. Everything is gone.
But I’m still here. My heart’s still beating-beating-beating as I start to run again, panting as harsh in my ears as the wind.
My mouth tastes of metallic rot and I am bleeding everywhere—my white fur running red, the agony excruciating, every footfall on pavement sending a jolt through me like a cattle prod.
But I am alive.
The pain is how I can tell.
The filth staining my paws.
My body aching, my belly worst of all.
The human residents of Inverness aren’t unaccustomed to the sight of a wolf.
Still, I try where possible to keep to the shadows.
White fur—no matter how dirtied—doesn’t make it easy to hide, however.
Yelps of surprise follow me, and a few drunken shouts here and there.
Mostly, though, I make it north of the small city without causing alarm, and then further, as far as I can go.
In the coming days, people will probably tell tales of spotting a rare white shifter sprinting past them as though their life depended on it. If only they knew how accurate their presumptions would be.
I don’t dwell on it, though. Worrying about being tracked won’t stop it from happening. Like any panicked animal who’s gnawed their leg free of a trap, there is only one prevailing thought in my mind.
Run.