But I’ve never had patience for hunting like that.
Instead, I lunged through the bracken, ripping branches and bushes out of my way with a mighty fury. I landed full on his chest, and sent him tumbling to the ground. The man was strong and worthy of the chase. He bounded to his feet and scrambled off, wood chips flying in his wake.
Both River and I laughed, the sound rattling through the silent wood.
I gestured to my brother, then we set off, each of us flying through the trees on either side of the trail.
Meanwhile, the human raced up the path, chest heaving. He almost fell once, then managed to steady himself and dashed off even faster than before. He glanced over his shoulder, looking for us.
That was when I left the cover of trees. I flew right in front of him—when his head was turned—and he crashed into me, tumbled to his knees. I grabbed him by the throat, lifted him high like a prize until he squirmed in my grasp, eyes pleading. River howled, flying out from the wood behind us.
“Let him go,” my bother pleaded. “Let him run again. I want to catch him this time.”
And so I released the human. He darted around me, leaving the trail and heading straight for the thicket, for the falls.
“Hurry!” I called to my brother. A dead human was no good to us. I followed behind them both, laughing as River taunted the man, as my brother swooped down to nip at him with sharp teeth, teasing him with screeches and hollers. Then just as I’d feared, River let him run too far.
The man reached the cliffs and the falls. He paused for only a second, then leaped toward a watery death and the narrow canyon below.
I spread my wings, stopped time with a Veil, then flew through the glen, past the hissing white waterfall. I swooped down and down again until I was right beneath him. With a grin, I released the Veil, then caught the human in my arms.
“Sleep,” I sang as we sailed through forest gloom, back toward the trail where there would be room to feast.
The human tried to struggle against me. He blinked his eyes, tried to strike me with a wooden fist. But in a moment, all his muscles fell slack, his jaw loosened and his head slumped forward to his chest.
His breathing deepened and slowed, though I knew that he was yet awake.
I set him on the trail, where a broad meadow opened at the edge of the forest, and we kept to the shadow of the wood, avoiding sunlight as much as we could.
“Time to pretend we’re not Darklings,” I told River. He snickered. Legends come and go about my kind and we usually give in to whichever one is most popular.
I opened my mouth wide, let my fangs grow, and then just before the human fell into a deep sleep I sank my teeth into his neck, leaving behind a trail of blood and two puncture wounds.
He screamed, though we sought to muffle the sounds a bit too late, and I slammed my hand over his mouth.
Then the dreaming began. I watched as it pulled him down through rippling layers of images and threads of memory, all of his wishes and hopes and fears fighting for attention, struggling to be on center stage. Every forbidden fantasy and every secret longing lay exposed, like ripe fruit that ached to be picked and devoured.
The human writhed and moaned—half asleep, half unconscious—beneath the weight of the dream. Like it was too much. Like his body would burst.
At that moment, I summoned the dream, held one webbed hand out to catch it when it bubbled from the human’s lips. I ate my fill without stopping, until I was glutted, and I would have eaten yet more, but that was when a new sound broke through the vale: thrashing and scrambling, and the mixed scent of human and beast wafted through the wood.
Someone else was coming toward us on the trail.
I pulled away from the human to listen. Distracted, I heard laughter in the near distance. Two more humans were approaching. And a dog.
“Stop. We must leave,” I said, turning back, but that was when I realized that it was too late. My brother had feasted until the human had no more dreams left. The creature lay quivering on the ground before us, like a babe sleeping through a nightmare. He was dying with soft, whimpering cries.
“You’ve taken it all,” I growled.
River wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I couldn’t stop,” he said, a look of terror in his eyes. And now the creature stretched out on the ground before us—no more than an empty shell, a brittle skin with bones inside.
Dead.
Meanwhile, the wild and noisome racket drew even closer.
Chapter 6
Birds of Prey
Maddie:
Tucker and I hiked higher and higher on the trail that led through the forest, the sky now burnished with the fiery shades of sunset. The muscles in my legs ached and my lungs burned from the thin mountain air. Sunlight glinted off a cropping of rocks to my left and I lifted a hand to shield my eyes. Just then—when I was raising my arm—I thought I saw two shadows drop from the sky, broad wings spread wide.