Prologue
I floated in the darkened sky looking below to the dirt mound surrounded by woods. I watched and waited for something to happen, as if I expected a situation. And when I saw the dirt shift, little rocks and soil tumbling to the side, I knew what I was waiting for.
I knew it as well as the next breath I needed.
Dirty hands popped through the earth. They clawed out of the ground, digging their way free.
Fear clenched my stomach, despite knowing I shouldn’t be scared.
The scene was surreal.
A head broke free next and tipped back. A growl shuddered through the area. Wild red eyes took in everything. It was a woman. Her light-colored hair was either blonde or white, but filthy from the muck. She pushed at the dirt and then leaped from the hole she’d been buried in. As she landed in a crouch, her eyes frantically darted this way and that. Her head tipped again, her nostrils flaring. She scented her surroundings.
Another growl rumbled from her, tore from her. The sound almost animalistic.
The dress covering her small frame was in tatters.
My stomach tightened when I saw her clutch at her own gut as she slowly stood, as if I could feel the hunger eating away at her.
The wind brushed through the area, her hair and dress swaying in the breeze. Suddenly, she spun right and crouched again. A low, humming rumble echoed out of her mud-caked mouth and into the woods.
Again, fear bombarded me.
The woman looked crazed. Her body tensed when we heard a branch break close by. Her upper lip pulled back in a snarl, a warning, and I felt mine doing the same.
Into the small clearing stepped a….
Confusion swamped me. I should know what it was, but I couldn’t place it in my mind. The animal looked like a dog, but it was different. Bigger. Four times bigger than any dog I’d seen. Its body was built like a tank, even under the thick fur I could see each muscle pull while it slowly took step after step toward the woman. Its bright red eyes glowed back at her.
The animal let loose its own growl, but the full force of it was obstructed by something it carried in its mouth.
The woman stayed perfectly still, but I could tell she was ready to pounce if she needed to. If a fight was to be had, she was ready. She hadn’t survived being buried for nothing. There was a reason everything happened.
There had to be.
The animal went down on its legs as it drew closer and then belly crawled the rest of the way to her. The woman’s head tilted to the side as if confused, and again she scented the air with a big breath in. Another growl erupted from within her when hunger stabbed her stomach once more.
How I knew it, I wasn’t sure.
But I knew it with the clarity of my own hunger.
The animal dropped what was in its mouth, nosed it toward her, and then retreated a little. Sitting, it watched her, looking from the woman to what lay in front of her.
My focus landed on the item it dropped, and my eyes widened.
It was an arm.
An arm from a human body.
The woman dove at it, picking it up before the animal could withdraw the offering. She scooted back, and while keeping her eyes on the animal, she lifted the arm, sniffed it and….
Oh, God.
She opened her mouth wide before biting into the flesh. Blood ran down around her lips. The kill must have been fresh. She moaned as she swallowed the first bite. It had sated the hunger, but only a little, so she took off another chunk using her teeth, not caring it coated her mouth and clothes in more blood, or that she was eating human flesh in the first place.
The animal stood and edged closer to the woman. She watched it with wary eyes and growled once when it sat beside her.
I should have been disgusted.
Even scared.
But I wasn’t.
I wasn’t because I knew.
I knew the woman had been reborn into something else, and the animal at her side was there to help her.
I knew it all… because I was her.
The Hidden Kingdom Trilogy
is available now in Kindle Unlimited.