You sleep deeply in your bag, wrapped in what little comfort your thin tent can offer. Outside, the last of the campfire murmurs in quiet crackles. Its dying glow flickers through the fabric, pulsing like a heartbeat. The sound is gentle, steady, almost like the forest is singing you to sleep. You’d let the fire burn down on purpose, hoping it would stand guard just long enough for rest to take hold.

Your thoughts drift, growing lighter with each passing breath.

Then a sharp crack cuts through the quiet.

Your eyes snap open. In an instant, you’re upright, braced on your hands, lungs tight with stillness. Your heart slams in your chest as you scan the tent’s dim walls, trying to find the source of the noise. For a few long seconds, there’s nothing. Only the soft rustling of leaves and the steady rhythm of night insects.

Then you hear it again.

A faint scrape. The sound of something brushing against bark. Followed by another snap. This one closer.

The fire has dwindled to a faint glow, just enough to cast a warm, red light through the tent. Shadows bend and ripple along the fabric, twisting unnaturally with each flicker. The fire is dying, and so is the illusion of safety.

That’s when you see her.

A silhouette drifts past the wall of the tent. Tall, slow, not quite human. She moves like a woman, but her shape is wrong. Her waist is far too narrow, her hips curve out in a wide arc. From her head rise a massive pair of antlers, branching out like the tangled roots of some ancient tree.

Then you hear her breathing.

Low and deep. Each breath heavy, deliberate, like the slow exhale of a creature built for cold and silence. The sound presses against the tent from just a few feet away.

In a blink, the silhouette is gone. Vanished as if it were never there.

You fumble for your lantern, hand shaking as your fingers close around the handle. You unzip the tent and push through the flap, stepping into the open. You don’t bother closing it behind you.

The cold night wraps around you immediately, but the lingering heat from the embers warms your legs. You turn slowly, eyes scanning the forest. Every tree looks suspicious now. Every gap between trunks feels deeper than it should. Nothing moves.

You let out a long breath, forcing yourself to relax. You tell yourself it was nothing. A trick of the light. A half-dream.

Then you feel it.

A huff of warm air brushes the back of your head. Wet. Real.

You freeze.

Your blood goes still. Slowly, inch by inch, you turn around.

She’s standing there.

No more shadow. No more distance. Only six feet away. Her body is massive, slightly hunched but upright enough to tower over you. Her chest rises and falls with each slow breath, sending puffs of fog into the night from the open jaw of a skinless deer skull. There are no eyes, only black, hollow sockets that somehow still focus on you.

Her body is covered in a short, thick coat of dark fur, except for her head, antlers, arms, and the grotesque tail that snakes behind her. A raw, exposed spinal cord that absently sways from side to side. Her limbs end in black claws that look sharp enough to split bark. Her shoulders are wide, powerful. Her muscles ripple beneath the fur like coiled ropes ready to snap. Her chest is heavy and full, rising high, firm and rounded. Her waist tapers hard, unnaturally narrow, and her hips spread wide, fertile and monstrous. Behind them, her backside curves in impossible fullness, soft yet solid. Her thighs, thick as tree trunks, jiggle faintly with each subtle shift of weight.

Your eyes drift down her towering body, and that’s when you see it. Obscene amounts of her arousal drip onto the forest floor, some tricking down her thighs.

You look back up at her, into the sockets of her eyes and the void filling them. She wasn’t here to hunt pray, she was here to make life. And she has already decided that you are her mate.