The forest beneath Mount Hood was sinking slowly into that deep blue hour between day and night. The last threads of sunlight clung to the tops of the fir trees while the ground below faded into a maze of shadows and pale silver light. A cool wind moved quietly through the trunks, carrying the scent of pine, damp moss, and distant snowmelt from higher in the mountains.
Tauriel stood at the edge of the clearing, her body completely still, every muscle poised beneath her fur. The forest unfolded around her in layers of sound and scent: a vole scratching somewhere beneath the moss, a distant owl shifting in its nest, the faint trickle of water sliding down hidden stones. Normally the mountains had a calming rhythm, something ancient and steady that soothed both the wolf and the woman inside her. Tonight, however, something had disturbed that rhythm.
The smell reached her a moment later.
Her nose twitched, and the moment recognition struck, a cold shiver ran down Ithilien's spine.
Fenrir.
The virus had a scent that no wolf who had encountered it would ever forget. It carried the sharp copper tang of blood mixed with the sour decay of dying tissue, but beneath that lingered something far worse—a sterile, chemical bitterness that did not belong in any living body. It smelled like sickness forced into flesh that had never been meant to carry it.
Her lips curled slowly, exposing the sharp line of her teeth.
So that was what this creature was.
Across the clearing the thing moved, and the sight of it made something inside Ithilien tighten. It looked as though someone had tried to force a wolf into the shape of a man and abandoned the transformation halfway through. One limb bent like a human arm, grotesquely elongated, the claws dark with dried blood. The rest of the body remained painfully lupine—ribcage visible beneath patchy fur, the spine twisted into an unnatural curve that made its movements jerky and uneven.
Its head lifted slowly.
Pale eyes found her.
They were empty.
There was no recognition there, no awareness of another wolf standing before it. No instinct of pack, territory, or hierarchy. Only hunger.
For a moment a very old instinct whispered through Tauriel's mind.
Leave.
Infected wolves were unpredictable. Once the virus fully took hold, they lost the natural boundaries that kept predators from destroying everything around them. They became violent, fast, and almost impossible to stop.
Ithilien felt the urge to retreat flicker through her thoughts. She could slip back into the trees and disappear into the mountains. She could return to the lodge, warn the others, bring the pack.
But another thought rose just as quickly.
What if the creature wandered farther down the mountain?
What if it reached the lodge?
What if it found someone weaker first?
Images flashed through her mind before she could stop them—people near the lake, the distant laughter she had heard earlier, the fragile line between human safety and the wilderness that surrounded them. If this thing crossed that line, it wouldn't stop.
Her body lowered instinctively, muscles tightening as Tauriel prepared for the fight.
Still, a flicker of hesitation remained.
This had once been a person.
Somewhere beneath the twisted body and hollow eyes, there had once been a human mind. Killing an animal in the wild was one thing. Ending a life that had once belonged to someone else was something entirely different.
Was it truly the only choice?
The creature answered that question for her.
It screamed.
The sound tore through the clearing like a blade. It wasn't a wolf's howl and it wasn't human either—it was something broken between the two, a shriek filled with rage and endless pain. The forest seemed to recoil from it.
Then it lunged.
The creature moved with terrifying speed, far faster than its distorted body should have allowed. Tauriel reacted instantly, springing forward at the same moment. They collided in a violent blur of claws and teeth, the impact knocking the breath from Ithilien's lungs as the creature's weight slammed into her.
A long, twisted limb swung toward her with frightening reach. Tauriel twisted away, but not fast enough. The claws tore across her forearm, ripping through fur and skin.
Pain exploded through her limb as the talons carved deep.
Warm blood spilled instantly down her leg.
Tauriel snarled, the sound low and furious, but the pain only sharpened her focus. She drove forward, her jaws snapping shut around the creature's shoulder. Flesh tore beneath her teeth, and bone cracked with a sickening sound.
The creature didn't even flinch.
It didn't slow down.
Fenrir had burned the sense of pain out of it completely.
The creature twisted violently, wrenching itself free before launching another attack. Its jaws snapped inches from her throat as its claws raked wildly through the air. The fight dissolved into a storm of motion—bodies slamming into the ground, claws tearing through bark and moss, snarls echoing through the trees.
But as the seconds passed, Tauriel began to see the pattern.
The creature was strong.
It was fast.
But it had no mind left to guide it.
Only madness.
She waited.
Watched.
Measured.
When the creature lunged again, jaws opening wide for her neck, Tauriel shifted sideways at the last possible moment and drove forward with every ounce of strength in her body. The impact threw the creature off balance, sending it crashing sideways across the clearing.
Before it could recover, she struck.
Her jaws clamped around its throat.
The taste of infected blood flooded her mouth—bitter, metallic, foul.
The creature thrashed violently, claws tearing into her fur as it tried to rip free. For a single moment Ithilien hesitated again. A small part of her mind still whispered that this had once been a living person, someone who might have had a name, a family, a past.
But when she looked into those pale eyes, there was nothing human left.
Only emptiness.
Tauriel tightened her grip.
Muscles locked.
Teeth drove deeper.
With a savage twist of her neck, bone cracked beneath the pressure.
The creature spasmed once, then again, before its body collapsed into the moss.
Still.
Tauriel released it and stepped back slowly. Her chest rose and fell with heavy breaths as the clearing sank back into silence. Blood dripped steadily from the wound in her arm, dark drops soaking into the moss at her feet. The scratch burned fiercely, deep enough that she already knew it would leave a scar.
But the pain barely registered.
Her golden eyes remained fixed on the corpse lying twisted in the moonlight.
The smell of Fenrir still hung in the air like poison.
And one thought refused to leave her mind.
Fenrir didn't simply appear in the middle of untouched wilderness.
Which meant this creature had not come from nowhere.
Something had made it.
Somewhere in the vast forests surrounding Mount Hood, something was spreading the virus.
Tauriel lifted her head slowly, her ears turning toward the dark trees surrounding the clearing. For the first time since she had entered these mountains days ago, the forest no longer felt peaceful.
It felt like the beginning of a hunt.
And this time…
she was not the only predator.