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Fairfax was deeply asleep, his breathing a slow, even susurration in the quiet tent. It was a few degrees warmer inside, mostly because the tent blocked the wind. She sat down in the narrow space between Fairfax and the tent wall. He rolled partially toward her as she settled next to him, as if seeking her warmth.

Taken aback, Trieka looked down at him. He’d taken off his shirt, and one arm lay outside the sleeping bag. His hair was tousled, his face dark with three days of stubble. His well-cut mouth moved almost into a pout, then opened as she watched. He’d be drooling on his pillow soon.

She grinned a little at the thought, then sobered. There was something disturbingly intimate about watching him sleep. Only a wife or a lover should see a man drooling in his sleep. She was neither. She was…well, God only knew at this point.

Carefully, she lifted his wrist and moved his arm back inside the sleeping bag. He was warm—a veritable furnace under there. It had been a long time since she’d been close to a sleeping man. She’d forgotten how hot they could get.

There. That was better. He’d get too cold with his arm exposed like that…

He shifted again. As he rolled even closer to her, the other arm flopped out of the sleeping bag and across her lap. Trieka jumped, then relaxed in his inadvertent embrace. Gently, she pushed the dark red-brown hair out of his eyes.

“Sleep tight, Fairfax,” she whispered.

• • *

Fairfax woke with a jolt some hours later, not certain what had brought him to consciousness. To his surprise, he discovered he had his head in Cavendish’s lap. She was very still, and at first he thought she might be asleep, too.

He shifted, his cheek rubbing against her thighs. This was far too close for comfort; the feel and the smell of her gave him visions of planting his face right between her legs and—

Her hand came down on top of his head, fingers moving into his hair.

“Are you awake?” Her voice was barely audible.

“Yes,” he whispered back. He felt the tension in her then, in her thighs, and in her fingers as they dug into his scalp.

“Can you hear that?”

He listened. He heard something—a rustling, chuffing noise from outside the tent. He nodded.

“What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know,” Cavendish said. “But I do know I’m taking a gun.”

“I’ll go.” He moved off of her, slowly and quietly, and sat up. He couldn’t quite see her expression in the moonlight.

“You just woke up,” she protested, her voice barely above a breath.

“Exactly my point. You’ve been up, what, eighteen hours?”

He picked up the rifle from the floor next to his sleeping bag. She picked up the other rifle and followed as he edged to the front of the tent and peeked past the flap.

“Holy shit,” he mumbled.

Moonlight illuminated the campsite, but Fairfax didn’t need the light to see the huge, hulking creature now dominating it. Fairfax recognized the head immediately. He’d seen a similar one stuffed and mounted on the Taylors’ trophy wall. It was digging in the ground a few yards outside the tent, apparently unaware it had company. The tiny eyes glistened in the bright moonlight. Carefully, feeling his heart speed up, Fairfax eased back into the tent.

“Do you know anything about these things?” he asked Cavendish.

“They’re big and ugly,” she answered. She paused, and before Fairfax could bristle at her flip reply, he saw the flash of fear in her eyes and heard her swallow thickly. She put her hand behind his neck and pulled his head down so she could whisper directly into his ear. “They’re herbivores, but if they feel threatened, they’ll kill. They don’t see well, and they hunt mostly by smell. We’re downwind, or it would know we were here.”

She moved away and he nodded, then put his mouth against her ear. “I think we should kill it. I don’t want to risk it rushing us. If it did, I don’t think we’d have much of a chance.” And then, for no reason whatsoever, he sucked her earlobe into his mouth and nipped it gently. “Wish me luck.”

“I’ll cover you.” Grinning a little, she wiped her ear on her shoulder.

Between the few hours of sleep and the heady rush of adrenaline, Fairfax felt incredibly alert. Cavendish’s hand touched his back, then fell away as he crept out of the tent and into the moonlight-covered forest.

The creature hunched not five yards away. It was gray and black, with a hide like an elephant’s, and stood nearly six feet at the shoulder. Improbably small, cloven hooves dug at the ground like little shovels, sending a spray of dirt under its low belly and out between its hind legs. The low-slung, porcine head bore a long, sharp nasal horn. It looked like a cross between a giant boar and a triceratops.

Fairfax considered, not certain what to do. A shot in the head might kill it, and was certainly less risky than trying to put a bullet between its ribs. If he didn’t fell it on the first shot, he’d be in for a showdown. He didn’t like that idea very much. He resisted the urge to glance back at Cavendish. There was no telling what the thing might do if he made the wrong move.

Slowly, carefully, he lifted the rifle to his shoulder and lined up the shot. The creature continued digging, snorting and chuffing blissfully. The night breeze stirred his hair. The forest lay deathly silent.

Then, the creature lifted its big blocky head and looked directly at him.

He froze. The space between the creature’s eyes was centered in the scope. In what seemed like an eternity, he heard his heart speed up, felt adrenaline soak his blood, heard Cavendish’s nearly silent intake of breath behind him. Then the beast charged, and Fairfax pulled the trigger.

It was a clean shot. Blood sprayed from the crater that appeared between the animal’s eyes. It should have dropped in its tracks.

It didn’t. It kept coming. Fairfax readied his gun for another shot, then realized the thing would be on top of him before he could pull the trigger. He threw himself to one side. The beast came, head down, and slung its nose toward him.

He stumbled, and the head came up under him. With a casual shake of its head, the creature lifted him off his feet and flung him over its shoulder. The horn went into him. He felt it, hard and cold as it ripped through his thigh, toward his groin. Then he was in the air, shock hitting him as he flew over the animal’s shoulder. He heard another shot, a howl, and his world became pain as he hit the ground.