Maya POV
My lungs burned. My broken ribs felt like knives stabbing with every breath. But I ran anyway because behind me, three beast-men laughed as they chased me through the alien forest.
They weren't even running fast. They were playing with me.
"She's quick for a human," one called out, his voice full of amusement.
"Not quick enough," another answered.
Branches whipped my face. Roots tried to trip me. My shredded business skirt caught on thorns and tore further. I didn't care. My engineering brain screamed calculations: their stride length versus mine, stamina ratios, probability of escape.
Zero percent. The math said I was dead.
But I kept running because that's what you do when monsters hunt you. You fight. You survive. You don't quit until your heart stops.
Think, Maya. THINK. You design buildings. You solve impossible problems. There has to be a way out.
The forest ahead opened into another clearing. Bad. Open ground meant they'd catch me easily. But I had no choice—the trees were too thick to navigate anywhere else.
I burst through the tree line and my feet skidded to a stop.
A ravine. Fifty feet across, dropping into darkness below. The kind of geological formation that happens over millions of years when water cuts through rock. No bridge. No crossing. Just a death drop.
Behind me, branches snapped. They were close now. So close I could hear their breathing.
I spun around. The three beast-men emerged from the forest, taking their time. The tiger-striped one in front grinned, showing fangs designed to tear flesh. The other two—one with gray wolf features, another covered in spotted hyena fur—flanked him like a military formation.
Smart hunters. They'd herded me to a dead end.
"Nowhere to run, little female," the tiger-man purred. His eyes traveled down my torn clothes, and my skin crawled. "You're unclaimed. That means you're free game. We'll share you between us, keep you fed and protected. You should be grateful."
"Grateful?" The word exploded out of me, all fear transforming into rage. "You chased me like an animal!"
"You are an animal," the hyena-man sneered. "A weak one. In the Beastworld, females submit to the strongest males. That's survival."
Beastworld. So this nightmare has a name.
My mind raced. Three against one. I had zero weapons, zero strength, zero chance in a fair fight.
So I wouldn't fight fair.
"You want me?" I backed toward the ravine edge, my heels inches from the drop. "Come get me."
They moved forward, confident, still smiling. They thought I was cornered. Helpless.
They didn't know I'd spent ten years designing structures, learning physics, understanding how the world worked at a level they couldn't imagine.
I looked down into the ravine. My engineer's eye caught details they'd miss—the angle of the walls, the vegetation patterns suggesting water flow, the way shadows indicated depth and possible landing zones.
Fifty-fifty chance I'd survive the fall. Ninety-nine percent chance I'd die if I stayed.
Easy math.
"Last chance, female," the tiger-man said, reaching for me. "Submit, or we take you by force."
I smiled. Actually smiled. Because fear and fury mixed into something sharp and deadly in my chest.
"I've got a better idea," I said.
And I jumped backward into the ravine.
Their shocked roars followed me down as I fell through empty air. My stomach lurched into my throat. The walls blurred past. This was insane. This was suicide. This was—
My hand caught a thick vine growing from the ravine wall.
Pain exploded through my shoulder as my falling weight jerked against the plant, but the vine held. Years of rock climbing at the gym kicked in automatically. I swung my legs, found purchase on a jutting rock, released the vine and grabbed another lower down.
I was climbing. Actually climbing down instead of falling to my death.
Above me, the three beast-men stared down in shock.
"She's climbing!" the wolf-man shouted. "How is she climbing?"
"Get down there!" the tiger-man snarled. "She can't escape!"
But the ravine walls were steep and smooth where I'd chosen to jump—too difficult for their bulk. They'd have to find another way down.
I'd bought myself time. Maybe minutes. Maybe only seconds. But I'd take it.
My hands found holds my architect's eye recognized—stress fractures in the rock, vegetation indicating stable ground, natural ledges formed by water erosion. I moved fast, ignoring my screaming muscles and broken ribs.
Halfway down, the vine in my right hand snapped.
I fell ten feet before catching another handhold, my fingers scraping raw against stone. Blood made my grip slippery. My vision swam with pain.
Don't stop. Don't you dare stop.
Above me, the beast-men had disappeared. Looking for a way down. I had maybe two minutes before they found me.
I dropped the last fifteen feet, landed hard on rocky ground, and my ankle twisted with a crack that made me bite back a scream.
The ravine floor was darker, damper. A small stream trickled through it—the water source I'd predicted. But I didn't have time to celebrate being right.
A massive roar echoed through the ravine. Not from above. From ahead, deeper in the shadows.
Something moved in the darkness. Something huge that made the beast-men seem small.
Two eyes opened. Yellow, glowing, ancient with hunger.
The creature stepped into the dim light filtering down from above, and my blood turned to ice.
A sabertooth lion. Twelve feet long, muscles rippling under tawny fur, fangs the length of kitchen knives dripping with saliva. Its prey-focused stare locked onto me with the intensity of a predator that hadn't eaten in days.
Behind and above me—three beast-men who wanted to claim me by force.
Ahead of me—a prehistoric monster that wanted to eat me.
No escape route. Broken ankle. Exhausted. Bleeding.
The sabertooth's lips pulled back in a snarl that vibrated through my bones.
I survived a building collapse and dimensional transportation just to be eaten by an extinct lion. The universe has a sick sense of humor.
The creature crouched, muscles coiling.
I did the only thing I could think of. I grabbed a rock the size of my fist and held it up like a weapon.
The sabertooth paused. Then it made a sound that might have been laughter if lions could laugh.
And it charged.