Aurora’s P.O.V

The forest should’ve been silent, the kind of eerie silence that makes your skin crawl—but it wasn’t. It was suddenly alive with the guttural snarls of the creature standing only feet away from them. My blood ran cold. My chest tightened. I didn’t even realize I had stopped breathing.

The thing towered over them, skeletal limbs, back arched, mouth stretched unnaturally wide to reveal jagged, dripping teeth. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in ...