Maya POV
The sabertooth's roar shook the ravine walls.
Time slowed. The massive prehistoric cat launched itself at me, all muscle and hunger and death. Its yellow eyes promised I was already dead—my body just hadn't figured it out yet.
My engineering brain screamed numbers: velocity, trajectory, impact force. All equations that ended with me torn apart.
But something in my chest refused to accept it. I didn't survive a building collapse and cross dimensions just to become cat food.
The sabertooth's claws reached for my face.
I dove sideways and hurled my rock straight at the creature's eye.
Pure luck—the rock hit. The sabertooth's head snapped back with a shriek of rage and pain. Not seriously hurt, just angry now. So much worse.
I scrambled backward on my broken ankle, agony shooting up my leg. The ravine wall pressed against my spine. Nowhere left to go. The sabertooth shook its massive head, blood trickling from above its eye, and refocused on me with murderous intent.
Think. THINK. What kills a predator?
My eyes darted around desperately. The ravine walls rose fifty feet on both sides. Water trickled between rocks. Loose stones everywhere. And above—
Above, I heard the three beast-men shouting as they searched for a way down.
An insane idea bloomed in my head. The kind of idea that either saved lives or ended them. I'd used it once before, in my college thesis: controlled demolition through strategic structural failure.
The ravine walls weren't stable. I could see it in the way rocks sat loosely in eroded pockets, held by centuries of compressed dirt and plant roots. The water flow patterns showed weak points. One good impact in the right place...
The sabertooth crouched for another charge.
I grabbed the biggest rock I could lift—about twenty pounds of jagged stone—and ran. Not away. Toward the most unstable section of ravine wall I'd identified.
"Come on!" I screamed at the creature. "Chase me, you overgrown housecat!"
It charged with a roar that made my bones vibrate.
I ran three steps and pivoted at the last possible second. The sabertooth's momentum carried it straight into the wall behind where I'd been standing.
The impact shook the ground.
I was already swinging my rock at the wall's weak point—a spot where water erosion had hollowed out the dirt beneath larger stones. My rock hit perfectly. Cracks spiderwebbed through the compressed earth.
Nothing happened.
The sabertooth turned, snarling, ready to finish me.
Then the wall groaned.
That same terrible sound the building made right before it collapsed. The sound of something massive failing all at once.
Tons of rock and earth broke free from the ravine wall and crashed down. The sabertooth looked up, eyes widening in animal understanding of danger.
The avalanche buried it.
Dust exploded through the ravine. I covered my mouth and nose, pressed against the opposite wall, as rocks the size of cars tumbled past. The roaring, crashing, grinding noise went on forever.
Then—silence.
The sabertooth was gone. Completely buried under a mountain of debris.
I'd killed it. Me. Tiny Maya Chen who'd never even won a fistfight. I'd just taken down a prehistoric apex predator using physics and desperation.
My legs gave out. I collapsed against the wall, laughing and crying at the same time, unable to believe I was still alive.
"What in the ancestors' names..."
The voice came from above.
I looked up through the settling dust. A figure stood at the ravine's edge, backlit by the purple sky. Male. Massive. Not the three who'd chased me—this one was bigger, broader, radiating a different kind of danger.
He stared down at the rockslide, then at me, his expression unreadable.
"You did that?" His voice was deep, rough, carrying easily down the ravine. "You brought down the wall?"
I couldn't speak. Could barely breathe. My ribs screamed. My ankle throbbed. Everything hurt.
The figure moved with inhuman speed, jumping down the ravine in powerful leaps that should have broken his legs. He landed fifteen feet from me, straightening to his full height.
Silver-gray fur covered his muscular body. Wolf ears sat atop his head. His eyes glowed amber in the dim light—predator eyes, but different from the others. These eyes assessed me with sharp intelligence, not just hunger.
Battle scars covered his chest and arms. This wasn't some young male looking for an easy claim. This was a warrior who'd survived things that killed weaker creatures.
"Stay back," I managed to say, though my voice shook. I tried to stand and fell immediately, my broken ankle refusing to support me.
The wolf-man held up both hands, palms out. A gesture of peace that somehow made him more terrifying—he was confident enough to show he meant no threat because he could kill me anytime he wanted.
"Easy, little one. I'm not here to hurt you."
"That's what they all say right before—"
"Before what?" His amber eyes narrowed. "Who hurt you?"
Something in his tone made me pause. Not curiosity. Anger. Like the thought of someone hurting me offended him personally.
Then he breathed in deeply through his nose. His entire body went rigid. His eyes widened, pupils dilating.
"No," he whispered. "It's not possible."
"What's not possible?"
He took a step closer, moving slowly like approaching a spooked animal. "Your scent. You're..." He breathed in again, and something like wonder crossed his scarred face. "Fate-marked. You're mine."
"I'm not anybody's!" The words burst out automatically. I'd had enough of beast-men claiming ownership. "I'm a person, not property!"
"I know." His voice softened in a way that shocked me. "That's not what I meant. Fate-marking means..." He struggled for words. "The ancestors chose you for me. My perfect match. After everything I lost, they gave me you."
"I don't believe in fate," I said, but my voice wavered because his expression held such raw emotion—hope mixed with disbelief mixed with something that looked like grief.
"Neither did I," he admitted. "Not after my pack died. But you're here. Real. And you just killed a sabertooth with nothing but rocks and a clever mind." He smiled slightly. "You're not what I expected."
Above us, angry shouts echoed. The three beast-men had found a path down.
"Found her!" one yelled. "The female's mine!"
The wolf-man's expression went cold. Hard. Lethal. He stepped between me and the approaching voices, his body language shifting from gentle to deadly in a heartbeat.
"The female is mine," he said, his voice carrying a command that made me shiver. "Fate-marked and claimed. Challenge me if you dare."
The three appeared around the bend in the ravine. They saw him and stopped. The tiger-man's cocky expression vanished.
"Kael," he said, and it sounded like a curse. "We didn't know—"
"Now you do." Kael's voice could have cut steel. "Leave. Or I'll add your bodies to that rockslide."
They exchanged glances. Then, without another word, they ran.
Kael turned back to me, his expression softening again. "Can you walk?"
"Broken ankle," I admitted.
He approached slowly, crouched down, and before I could protest, he scooped me up in his arms like I weighed nothing. His warmth soaked through my torn clothes. His heartbeat thundered against my ear.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking you home," he said simply. "To the Cursed Valley. The only place in this world where you'll be safe."
"Safe?" I laughed bitterly. "Nothing about this is safe."
"No," he agreed, climbing out of the ravine with me in his arms, moving easily despite my weight and his injuries. "But you'll be safe from them. I'll make sure of it."
"Why would you protect me? You don't even know me."
Kael looked down at me, and something in his amber eyes made my breath catch. Not lust. Not possession. Something deeper that I didn't have a name for.
"Because," he said quietly, "you're the first real thing I've felt in five years."