Tauren (The Wilds #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

Cold, damp air rushed against my skin. My legs burned with exertion as my feet pounded against the soft ground. Every breath I swallowed down ripped at my throat, causing my lungs to burn.

Still, I had to keep sucking them in—one after the other after the other—even as the dagger-like cramp at my side grew stronger.

If I didn’t breathe, I couldn’t run.

And if I didn’t run, I would die.

The situation was just that simple. The stakes just that high.

Laurel leaves and the supple redwood needles slapped against my face as I plunged deeper into the forest. The farther I went, the denser the woods grew.

A moment ago, the full moon had felt like a lighthouse, shining bright and strong.

But now the thick canopy blotted out all trace of the night sky.

Even the twinkling stars were put out, one by one, until there was nothing above me but inky darkness.

Now I was running blind.

I threw my arms out in front of me to keep from running headlong into a giant trunk or a thorny thicket of blackberry vines. But there was no way to protect my lower half, and this forest was a maze of obstacles.

My feet bashed against roots and rocks. My shins smacked twigs and rotted stumps. At least a dozen times, I stumbled, nearly falling. But each time, I managed to catch myself. To scrabble with my torn and bleeding hands until I was upright and running again.

It didn’t matter that my limbs shook with exhaustion, or that the dagger in my side had grown into a sword, splitting me open as the cramp climbed my ribs like a ladder. I had to keep running.

Even as the growling behind me grew louder.

The beast was getting closer.

Branches cracked and splintered as its massive body crashed through the brush, coming for me. The percussive thunder of its giant paws furiously beating against the ground was strong enough to shake the trees. A blood-curdling howl lifted up to the night sky.

That’s when I knew—it was going to catch me.

It didn’t matter how fast I moved; I could never outrun a monster.

Soon, it would sink its claws into my soft flesh and bring me to my knees. Its hot, fetid breath would wash against my face before it went for my neck, tearing muscles, ripping tendons, its meaty tongue lapping up the blood.

Nothing could save me.

Still, I couldn’t give up. I had to keep going. Keep running. Keep trying.

I felt the scratch of razor-sharp nails against my back, the thin cotton of my T-shirt ripping into thin shreds. I crossed my arms over my chest to keep it from flying off. Glancing down, I saw the small, round logo for Deke’s Goldwood Tavern peeking out from one of my hands.

Before the creature could take another swipe at my exposed back, I pivoted. It was a miracle my footing held on the slick leaf litter covering the ground. Then, zigzagging between the gauntlet of trees, I futilely tried to shake the beast off my trail.

But it was no use.

I only managed to make it a few more steps before the beast sprang. Giant claws, as long as my fingers, dug into my back. The pain was bright and brilliant. A scream ripped from my throat as hundreds of pounds of muscle and bone slammed me to the ground.

Searing agony flooded every nerve as the creature’s claws dug deeper, tearing flesh from bone.

Blood filled my mouth as thick fangs pierced the skin at the base of my neck, the monster’s jaws ready to snap with enough force to shatter my spine.

This was it—the end.

One more breath, and everything would fade to black.

I used the last of my strength to cry out his name.

“Tauren!”

I shot up in bed, panting hard and clutching my chest. It only took a second for my panicked reflexes to stop and for reality to seep in. I was alive. There was no forest. No monster. No blood or dirt or death.

I was safe in my bed at home. It was just a dream.

Not just any dream—the dream.

The same nightmare I’d had every night for the last seven years.

Every night since the year I turned eighteen, I tucked myself into bed knowing I’d soon be running down the same forest path and sloshing through the same trickling stream.

Every night, it was the same terrain—steep hills and rocky cliffs squeezing in at my sides, a sea of ferns and wood sorrel beneath me, rocks and fallen trees peppering the landscape, just waiting to trip me up.

And every night ended the same, with claws in my back, fangs at my neck, and calling out the name of a man I didn’t know.

A man I’d never seen.

A man I kept praying that one day was going to finally show up in one of these dreams and save me.

Letting out a frustrated groan, I fell back against my sweat-soaked sheets.

You’d think that after so long, I would have grown used to the horrific imagery. But no. Even though the dark forests and snarling jowls were familiar, they were always terrifying. Every night was like being trapped in a horror movie, cursed to relive the same death scene over and over again.

The first time I’d had the nightmare, I hadn’t thought anything of it. It had seemed like a normal dream. Relentless and terrifying, sure, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Lots of people had nightmares about the Wilds.

And why wouldn’t they? The territory to the north was a terrifying and dangerous place, home to a race of towering giants. Snarling beasts that only vaguely resembled humans—the ferus.

With finger-length claws and fangs as sharp as knives, they stalked the wilderness behind the giant Wall of the Wilds that kept them contained.

Every civilized soul was terrified of them.

You’d be hard-pressed to find any creature scarier than the half-men, half-beasts that stalked the untamed wilderness, hunting their prey with their bare hands and devouring the meat raw.

They were, quite literally, the stuff of nightmares. More frightening than any slasher in a horror movie or boogie man under your bed, the ferus were the monsters that the other monsters were afraid of.

And for some unknown reason, my subconscious mind was absolutely fixated on them. Every night, my brain took me back to the same place, beyond the Wall, deep inside the Wilds.

The dream started out harmless enough, just a series of images and sounds playing in my head. For the first few weeks, I woke up with a start and a racing heart, but that was it. After a few minutes, I’d manage to calm down, convince myself I was safe, and drift back off to sleep.

But the longer the dream stuck around, the more vivid it became. Details filled in.

Soon, I wasn’t just seeing and hearing the forest around me; I was smelling it.

I breathed in the richness of damp earth. I took in the fresh green aroma of lush vegetation as it was crushed under my heels. Even the scent of clear, cold water rushing over moss-covered rocks—something I never would have imagined had a smell all its own—filled my nose.

More time passed, and I began to taste the saltiness of my tears as they ran down my face and the coppery tang of blood dripping from my busted lip. When I crashed to the ground, dry dust coated my tongue. Fetid, decaying dirt pushed into my throat.

Finally, physical sensation joined the party. As the years went on, I started to feel everything.

Every horrible thing.

My chest constricting in panic. My heart hammering in fear. The painful stab of the cramp. The burning fire of exertion in my legs.

Every night, the sensations grew stronger. The blackberry thorns. The logs smacking against my shins. And the claws.

Oh, dear God, the claws.

They sliced like sharpened daggers, butchering me while I was still alive. Shredding and tearing the skin from my flesh while my heart still beat.

The pain was unbearable. Bright and brilliant. Utterly maddening.

And every night I was forced to relive it all, again and again.

Nothing the doctors did could make it stop...and you better believe there were doctors.

The neurologists did brain scans. The psychiatrists analyzed my subconscious mind. The sleep specialists measured my brain waves. But in the end, all of them were left scratching their heads.

Sorry, miss. I don’t know what to tell you. We can’t find anything wrong. Not anything physical anyway.

I’d heard some version of that speech at least a dozen times from various specialists.

It always came right before they put on their best pitying expression and walked me out their office door.

Sometimes, they sent me on my way with a prescription for sleeping pills or antidepressants (that never helped), but most times it was just a pat on the back and a half-hearted good luck.

So after three years of endless tests and insurance bills, I finally gave up on traditional medicine and tried the alternative stuff instead, trading in scans and pills for acupuncture needles, transcendental meditation, and juice cleanses.

But—surprise, surprise—the results were the same. No matter how many amethysts and moonstones I tucked under my pillow, the dream kept right on coming. Cups of lavender and mugwort tea couldn’t keep the night terrors away. Neither could Reiki or hypnosis.

The nightmare was just too strong. It plowed right through all resistance, returning night after night, without fail.

Eventually, the lack of sleep, the constant torment, the dwindling bank account—all of it wore me down. Sick of throwing away all my time and money on miracle cures that didn’t do shit, I finally surrendered, accepting once and for all that I simply had a fucked up brain.

One that was fixated on dying a horrible, bloody death in the Wilds.

One that wouldn’t stop filling my head with the images of a ferus alpha tackling me to the ground every night.

One that forced me to experience the horrible sensation of being ripped to shreds and the terrible fear of waiting for death to swallow me whole.

Yeah, it was a screwed up situation, but honestly, there was a strange sense of peace that came with accepting that this was just the way that I was. That I was stuck with these horrible sights and sounds for the rest of my life. That nothing was ever going to change.

Except something had changed tonight.

Something small. A detail I’d never noticed before. Not in seven years of this hell.

The logo on the t-shirt.

Deke’s Goldwood Tavern.

I’d never seen that before. Not once.

Usually, everything I noticed about myself was internal—the fear, the pain, the creeping darkness. Everything on the outside of my body was fuzzy. After all, the last thing you care about when there’s a monster nipping at your heels is what you’re wearing.

But for some reason, tonight the image was crystal clear, as if that part of the dream had inexplicably been pulled into focus.

It had been years since I’d noticed a new aspect. And, before now, it was usually just a new, horrible sensation to deal with.

But this…this was actually something.

What I wasn’t sure.

But definitely something.

I grabbed my phone off the bedside table, wincing as the bright screen light hit my eyes.

3:47 a.m.

That weird time right in between late night and early morning. It was my nightmare’s favorite time to torment me—too early to get up, too late to successfully fall back asleep. It was like my subconscious mind was on a mission to torture the waking parts of me.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes before typing Deke’s Goldwood Tavern into my phone’s browser, praying nothing would come up.

The nightmare had always been light on traceable details.

It wasn’t as if searching “nightmares about running through the Wilds” or “people named Tauren” would yield anything helpful.

I knew because I’d tried…repeatedly.

But the best I ever found were posts on message boards from people describing their one-time experiences.

Sometimes someone would describe a small cluster of repeating dreams over a few days, or an occasional recurring nightmare that reared its head every few months or years.

Nothing on the level I was experiencing.

Nothing that even came close.

Half a second later, a list of results popped up, and for a moment, I breathed a sigh of relief. Sure, it looked like there was a town of Goldwood (not a big surprise), but there was no website for a place called Deke’s Tavern. That was a good sign, right?

My stomach twisted when I clicked on a map of the town and saw that Goldwood was located at the top of the state. Right next to the Wall.

Okay…that wasn’t great.

But there were plenty of small, rural towns up north. Towns that served as hubs for the farms, logging operations, and military installations along the Wall. It didn’t necessarily mean anything that one just happened to be named Goldwood.

Pushing down my fear, I switched to the image results and started scrolling through the few pictures of the town posted online.

Goldwood appeared to be a cute, rustic town with weather-worn storefronts and wood plank walkways.

From what I could tell, Main Street was only a couple of blocks long, boasting a general store, a gas station, a cafe, and a bar.

Nope…not a bar.

A tavern. Maybe…

My chest tightened as my eyes narrowed on the capital T underneath a simple line drawing of a martini glass—the only part of the sign visible in the photo on my screen.

I held my breath as I frantically scrolled through the rest of the pictures, desperate to find one with a better angle. One that would show me the full name of the establishment. Praying that I’d find something that would ease my mind and reassure me that it had all been just a dream.

A horrible, painful, terrifying dream.

I should have been careful what I asked for because a few dozen photos later, I found the one I was looking for—a head-on shot of the bar.

A strange sensation crept up the back of my neck, electric and tingly. My hands shook. My eyes widened in a new kind of horror as I stared at the words inside the painted circle, clearly visible on the dusty window.

Deke’s Goldwood Tavern.

Holy shit.

It was real.

It couldn’t be…and yet there it was. On my phone. Exactly how it had looked in my nightmare.

Somehow, I had dreamed a logo I’d never seen before from a town I’d never heard of.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t blink. Couldn’t even think.

I must have sat there, frozen in a stupor for at least fifteen minutes because the next thing I knew, the time on my phone read 4:03, and I was up out of bed, already grabbing my suitcase and throwing a few days’ worth of clothes inside.