Even more so when the Duskwalker pounced. She only had a split second to roll to the side before she was impaled by his claws or crushed to death.
“Wait,” Emerie huffed out. She put her hand up to ward him off as he turned his raven skull and red orbs to her. “Wait. I don’t understand. I saved you.”
The way his next snarl rumbled from him, like a quiet, unnerving storm, had her hackles rising. It was beastly, terrifying, and the arrow sticking out of his jugular gave her just enough insight to understand that the lights may be on, but no one was home.
“Ingram?” she asked, hoping his name might break through to him.
It didn’t. His orbs were dark crimson, his spikes were raised, and even his scales looked lethal as they flared. The base of his tail was straight, the rest of it kinked.
She knew enough about predators to know when one was about to attack.
He’s angry, afraid, and in pain. He’d managed to get himself out, but not without being harmed. Had he forgotten she was on his back as he bolted? Was she really that light in comparison to his strength? Right now, I am dressed like the people who hurt him.
Fuck.
Emerie eyed her bag caught around the spikes of his back, as well as the harness she’d put around him. Twigs snapped under her thinly soled boots as she stepped to the left. When he roared and jumped that way, she sprung to the right and ducked behind a tree.
She didn’t stay there.
Pulling her whip from her weapons belt, Emerie ran for her life. She wasn’t fast, not compared to a Duskwalker, but she used the density of the forest to shield herself.
Will this nightmare ever end?! She mentally squealed as he dived out from a bush she had been inside of not even seconds before.
For almost six days, Emerie hadn’t known a moment of peace! She was exhausted on so many levels that she worried her soul would give up and leave her living body just to escape this torment.
This is the worst week of my life. Okay, that wasn’t entirely true, but it was on the tippy top of shit weeks.
Thank goodness she hadn’t removed his beak binding, otherwise she was sure he would have nipped her when he got too close. She had to lurch her body into an arch by going to her toes to avoid being pecked, before purposefully falling to her back and somersaulting to get away.
I just need to get behind him. That wasn’t going to be an easy feat, not when she constantly had to move.
“Ugh!” she screeched. “Fuck this!”
Emerie ducked between two trees he couldn’t fit through, came back around, and sprinted for him. There was no surprise for him, like he was so focused on killing her that he didn’t care.
Right as he jumped to catch her in both clawed hands, Emerie flung her whip forward around a branch. She went over the top of him, let the handle of her whip go, and landed on his back to ride him reverse cowgirl.
Within the span of a breath, she unlatched the hook between his shoulder blades that was connected to the harness she’d placed on him. She’d secured it to him for just this kind of situation.
Luck favours the prepared.
Just because she was expecting to die didn’t mean she hadn’t come up with a backup plan to prevent it!
He bucked her off as she was leaping away, and her arms cartwheeled as she flew through the air. Her stomach impacted against a tree branch strong enough to hold her, and she grabbed ahold of it before climbing up onto it.
The Duskwalker turned one way and then the next, searching for her. He finally scratched off the scent-cloaking package she’d tied over his nose hole.
This is my chance. He didn’t know where she was right now, and she needed time to secure her end of the rope leading to him. She fisted it tightly, envisioning her plan.
He was going to have to unknowingly help her with some of it.
Dropping to the ground, she sprinted around the tree and noticed she’d caught his attention by the time she was coming back around. She secured the hook around the rope’s length after she looped it around the trunk and then ran in the opposite direction.
Please work. He chased after her, almost at her back, almost within swiping distance. Please work!
Ingram let out a choking noise before his heavy, massive body thudded against the ground. Underneath the animalistic, enraged roars, she heard shuffling like he was wriggling to get free. Leaves scattered, sticks snapped and sprung away, and dirt puffed around him.
She turned around swiftly.
Emerie panted until she thought she’d hack up a lung, barely able to feel the pain in her fractured rib. Right now, she just felt like she had a massive stitch, but that was sure to worsen over time.
Trapped on his side, with his wrists, feet, and the base of his tail bound behind his back, he thrashed.
The long piece of rope she’d threaded loosely all over his body had pulled all his limbs in tight when he’d reached the end of it in his pursuit of her. She’d turned him into a living parachute.
Probably the most ingenious idea she’d ever had, to be honest.
She did feel bad for him, though.
He’d just escaped being trapped, and now he was hog-tied in the forest. His body was unnaturally bowed, especially since his tail was so curled back it threatened to wrap around his own throat. That didn’t look comfortable at all, and she thought it would have slipped off by now, considering the appendage’s tapered length, but the rope was caught on his tail spikes and vertebrae.
Despite his aggression, Emerie approached him.
His head was free, so she steered clear of it and its pecking ability. She knelt beside him and patted his abdomen, hoping to calm him.
“Shh. Hey, it’s okay. I’ll let you go once you calm down and we have a chat.”
Of course, it was like talking to a brick wall, but she continued to do it, hoping it would help. She could be patient, they just needed to wait this out… she hoped.
The beastly, feral noises he made were unsettling.
Emerie sighed with relief when his orbs finally flickered white for a moment, guessing it was a better colour than red. He thrashed even harder for a few seconds before white came back to linger longer.
Continuing her soothing strokes of his abdomen and sternum, he finally settled enough that his sight remained that hollow colour. He must be so confused. Do Duskwalkers remember what’s happened when they turn mindless?
Ingram let out a whine.
“Hey, it’s okay,” she reassured again. “I’m right here. I’ll–”
“It stings,” he whimpered out. His scales stiffened and became even more jagged, as he let out a violent shudder. “It stings! Why does it sting?”
She gasped and retracted her hands, incidentally slapping herself on the cheek.
Shit. Did I hurt him? She turned from looking at his skull to lean over his side. She checked his hands and feet touching each other behind his back but nothing looked broken or injured.
Emerie let out a shriek when something wiggled in her peripheral vision. What the hell?! There was a freaky dick at his groin!
She fell to her arse and crawled backwards like it was a terrifying spider hunting her. It wasn’t hard to mistake it for one when it had four tentacle limbs writhing in the air! However, the centre was unmistakably phallic shaped, with what she figured was his version of a nutsack embedded in the base of it.
Bright purple at the base, it darkened in colour until it was almost a purplish black at the very tip.