Chey scrambled backward on her branch. She had an urge to be closer to the trunk of the tree, with as much solid wood around her as possible. Every time the howling roar came out of the forest her skin literally crawled, ripples of goose-flesh undulating up her arms and down her back.

Then she heard it snuffling from not ten meters away. Nosing through the undergrowth like a snorting boar. Winkling out her scent, she was sure. She reached into her pocket and grabbed her cell phone for comfort. It made no sense—it didn’t need to. Her phone was hard and fist-sized. She supposed in a real emergency she could throw it like a rock.

It was the only weapon she possessed. She curled up against the side of the tree with her legs dangling down against the bark. She breathed through her nose, and tried not to panic, and didn’t make a move.

It didn’t matter, of course. The beast could smell her from kilometers away. It curled around the birch like a liquid shadow, like darkness poured out on the ground.

It took a step closer. Chey stopped breathing. It looked up.

The horror was not very much larger than the other wolves, perhaps two meters long from nose to tail, maybe a meter and a half tall at the shoulder. It possessed the same broad flat face of the wolves she’d seen before. If anything its muzzle was shorter but far more wicked-looking, full of enormous bone-grinding teeth. Its paws spread out across the snow, as broad as human hands, each digit ending in a long curved claw. Its coat was mottled silver and black.

She had trouble looking at anything but its eyes, though. Those eyes—they were not yellow, like the other wolves, but an icy green, narrow and cold. Intelligence resided in those eyes as well as something else, a dreadful anger. This animal didn’t want to eat her. It didn’t consider her prey. It wanted to kill her.

Those eyes, she thought again. They had a power over her. They had the power to make her afraid.

The monster despised her so much it wanted to tear her to pieces and scatter her remains across the forest floor. It wanted to spill her blood on the ground and grind her skull to shards with its giant teeth. All of that came across perfectly in the expression of the creature’s face, as clearly as if it were written there in indelible ink. The weight of that look, of that evil stare, made her press even harder backwards against the tree. It made her want to hide away, to do anything to escape such passionate loathing.

The beast’s hackles came up and its tail went down. Its lips pulled back from its teeth and a noise like a motorcycle revving up leaked out from between its jaws. And then it leapt at her.

Pushing hard against the ground with its hind legs it threw itself into the air. Its forepaws slashed at the space just below her dangling feet. Its mouth opened to grab her legs and crush them into paste. At the top of its leap it was only centimeters short of pulling her down out of the tree. It fell back to earth with a snarl and panted as it scratched and clawed at the yielding bark, snarling and growling its thwarted desire. Chey just had time to adjust her hold on the tree before the wolf leapt at her again.

“No,” she begged, but the beast came up at her as fast as if it were falling up at her, its teeth snapping in mid-air. She pulled back but one forepaw caught her in the ankle, a vicious claw sinking through skin and muscle to grate on the bone. Pain flashed through her like a red strobe light going off. For a second she heard and saw nothing but the blood vessels at the backs of her eyes.

The monster fell back again, its claw pulling free of her flesh.

Next time it would get a better grip. She was sure of it. She would die in the next few seconds, she realized. She would die, a victim of this enraged creature, if she didn’t do something, and right away.

She scrambled up against the trunk of the tree and lunged for a higher branch. She missed. Her leg throbbed and she gasped in pain but she knew if she didn’t get farther up the tree the beast would get her. It was just that simple. She reared up, grabbed a branch that looked like it might barely support her weight, and hauled herself up, even as stars burst in her eyes and her throat froze as she hyperventilated.

Those eyes.

The beast jumped for her a third time but she was out of its range. Hanging by her arms, she concentrated solely on not letting go. She tried not to look down but that was impossible.

At the base of the tree the monster dropped down on its haunches and stared at her. Its breath huffed in and out of its lungs in thick plumes of vapor. It was willing her to fall, to let go and fall. She could feel its desire. Its wanting.

Then the impossible happened. It turned its gaze away from her, if only for a moment. It looked out through the trees to where the moon was beginning to sink toward the horizon. When it turned to look at her again its palpable hatred was tempered with bitter resentment. It smoldered up at her for a while, then twitched its shoulder around and disappeared into the dim forest as quickly and as quietly as it had come.

It had to be a trick, she thought. But the wolf was gone.

Those eyes!