The smell of ozone and fresh copper was the last thing Dr. Elara Vance expected before the world exploded.
One second, she was vaulting over a root in the humid, stinking Amazonian jungle, adrenaline pumping a toxic cocktail through her veins, her worn hospital scrubs snagged on a thorny vine. She was running from a very angry, very large man named Marco—a man who ran a side business in illegal organ harvesting and now wanted to harvest her face.
The next second, the air didn't just grow cold; it became a solid, glittering, electric blue wall. Elara slammed into it, and for a terrifying, impossible moment, she felt every single one of her atoms vibrate at a frequency usually reserved for microwave ovens and particularly aggressive heavy metal concerts.
Note to self: she thought with the detached calm of someone who has seen one too many cardiac arrests, this is definitely not how standard jungle chases end. Also, where is all the green?
She was flying. Or, more accurately, she was tumbling through a dizzying kaleidoscope of purple, teal, and a sickly, glowing yellow. The ground—or whatever passed for gravity—returned with a vengeance.
KRA-WHOOM!
Elara hit water. Or a very soft, very deep pool of liquid that smelled intensely of musk, crushed jasmine, and something unsettlingly metallic, like licking a nine-volt battery after rolling it in expensive cologne. She sank fast, the precious air she'd drawn in whooshing out in a cascade of silver bubbles.
Oh, dear. Drowning. That's even worse than Marco.
Her scrub top instantly became a heavy, sodden death shroud. She kicked wildly, breaking the surface, gasping, coughing up a mouthful of the weirdly sweet water. Her vision swam. The sky above was not the familiar bruised purple of a tropical night, but a dizzying, star-choked canvas dominated by a single, colossal, perfectly full moon that pulsed with a vibrant, unnatural silver light. It was the kind of moon that didn't just illuminate the night; it seemed to throb with power.
Rule #1 of Emergency Medicine: Assess the scene. Rule #1 of My Life: The scene is usually trying to kill you.
Elara dragged herself onto the edge of the pool. It was an oasis, surrounded by massive, impossibly tall rock formations that looked like melted sandstone cathedrals. The air was dry, hot, and thick with tension.
Then she registered the noise. Not the buzz of jungle insects, but a low, guttural, vibrating growl that resonated deep in her chest cavity, right where her pacemaker should have been if she had one.
She looked up. And her carefully constructed, scientific worldview took a holiday, possibly a very long, one-way cruise to the Bermuda Triangle.
There were men. Huge, muscled, terrifyingly male specimens, nearly naked, smeared with dirt and what she sincerely hoped was mud. But these weren't just men. These were... more.
One of them was standing directly over her, a massive shadow against the surreal lunar glow. He was easily six-foot-six, his body a roadmap of corded muscle and ancient scars. He had a shock of hair the color of molten gold, and his eyes—God, his eyes—were luminous, fierce, and entirely feline, narrowed with an intense, proprietary focus that made her spine feel like ice.
A pair of torn, scorched pants was barely holding on to his hips. On his shoulders, dark, mottled blood was congealing around deep, ragged lacerations.
"Well," Elara muttered, rubbing grit from her eyes. "My initial diagnosis is: Severe Lacerations. Potential Shock. And definitely a Case of Too Many Abs."
The massive man's lip curled back, revealing a startlingly sharp canine that was absolutely not standard human anatomy. The growl intensified.
He wasn't alone. Surrounding the oasis were at least a dozen other giants, some lying still, some groaning, some locked in fierce, low-posture standoffs with another group of similarly enormous men.
This second group—shorter, leaner, and moving with an eerie, silent grace—were coated in black and grey pelts, their eyes shimmering with a cold, predatory canine intensity. They were clearly the opposition.
The air was thick with fresh blood. And she had just crash-landed her civilian butt right into the middle of a very violent, possibly fatal, territorial dispute.
The Golden Giant standing over her—the Alpha, her gut screamed, based purely on his superior size and air of unmitigated arrogance—took a deliberate step closer.
"Witch." The word wasn't spoken; it was vibrated, a deep, rumbling sound that seemed to shake the very water in the pool. It meant nothing to her, but the tone was universally understood: You are mine now, and I don't like you.
Elara, who had once talked a delirious, seven-foot-tall biker out of stabbing an orderly with a syringe, felt a familiar surge of professional irritation override her panic.
"Listen, 'Witch' or whatever your name is, I need you to stay still. You are currently hemorrhaging. If you don't slow your heart rate, that wound on your trapezius is going to—"
She stopped. The Lion Alpha, Kaelen (a name she would learn later, probably right before he killed her), wasn't looking at her injury. He was looking past her, down at the water's edge, where a younger, nearly unconscious man was slumped. This man was also Lion-esque, his breathing shallow, a deep, crimson wound pulsing sluggishly low on his flank.
Ah. Okay. This is not about me. This is about his injured friend. Hierarchy of needs: his need to save his Beta is currently overriding his need to kill the annoying human.
"He is fading," Kaelen snarled, sweeping his massive hand to indicate the injured man. He spoke a language that sounded like a cross between Latin and the scraping of claws on granite. Elara didn't understand the words, but the anguish and imperious demand in the tone were crystal clear.
"Fix him."
Elara stood up straight, ignoring the chill of her wet clothes and the terrifying closeness of the Golden Alpha. This was her turf. Not the jungle. Not the blood feud. The wound.
"I don't speak... growl," she said clearly, pushing her soaking hair out of her face. "But if you're asking me to perform emergency triage on that patient—and by the way, he needs to be moved to his side, he's aspirating—then you need to step back. Now. And I need a sterile dressing, a scalpel, and antibiotics. In short: I need a hospital, not a hostile situation."
Kaelen froze. The intense scrutiny in his golden eyes shifted from suspicion to something like confusion. This tiny, soaking wet, scentless creature was demanding things? And speaking utter nonsense?
The Lion Alpha let out a loud, frustrated roar that echoed off the rock walls. It was magnificent. It was terrifying. It was also deeply annoying.
"I am not going anywhere until I assess the bleed," Elara snapped, kneeling quickly by the injured Beta. She ripped a clean piece of fabric from the hem of her scrub skirt—a familiar, efficient motion—and pressed it hard against the Beta's leaking side.
She ignored the Lion Alpha's looming presence, focusing entirely on the patient. Her mind, the reliable, machine-like part of her brain that had survived residency, clicked into gear.
Bleeding is venous, not arterial, thank God. But it's deep and almost certainly infected, probably with whatever foul beast-disease lives in their claws. He needs a deep clean, immediate closure, and systemic antibiotics that I don't have.
Suddenly, a voice, sharp and cold as desert wind, cut through the tension.
"Foolish Lion. Your pup dies while you play with a distraction."
The voice came from the darkness on the opposite side of the oasis. Out stepped the leader of the opposing group: the Shadow Wolf Alpha.
This Alpha, Roric, was built for speed and stealth. His fur was midnight black, his eyes a chilling, pale silver that seemed to absorb the moonlight. He carried a heavy, crude spear, its tip stained crimson. He was flanked by two other large, silent Wolves, all watching the Lion Alpha's lapse in attention.
Kaelen let out another furious, challenged roar, momentarily turning his gaze—and the full force of his immense, feral rage—toward Roric.
Chaos. Excellent, Elara thought wryly. Diversion achieved. Now, the triage.
She leaned in close to the Lion Beta's ear, speaking English, knowing they couldn't understand the words, but hoping the firm, professional tone would penetrate the fog of shock.
"You're going to be fine, but you have to trust me. The pressure has to hold. Don't fight me."
She looked up at Kaelen, the Lion, and pointed a shaky but commanding finger at his chest. "You! Big one! Water. Now! Clean that wound on your arm! Infection will spread!"
She had no idea if her tone was communicating 'sterile technique' or 'I want to eat your brain,' but to her astonishment, the Lion Alpha, distracted by the Wolf Alpha across the water, took a step back, confusion still clouding his golden eyes. He obeyed the finger, instinctively realizing that the tiny human's focus was on the injured Beta, not on running away.
Elara's mind raced. She couldn't stitch without sterilizing needles. She couldn't clean without proper disinfectant. All she had was this bizarrely clean, slightly sweet oasis water, and her own two hands.
Okay, Vance. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. What is the most human thing you can do right now?
She remembered reading an ancient medical text about battlefield closures. Desperate times, desperate measures.
Elara pulled the fabric away from the wound. The bleeding immediately accelerated. She plunged her own hand into the cool, musky water, and then, using her fingernails and the force of the water, began to desperately scrub the grit and dirt out of the Lion Beta's laceration.
It was crude. It was barbaric. And judging by the loud, strangled gasp from the Beta, it hurt like a thousand tiny needles.
Kaelen roared again, this time a sound of utter distress and outrage, and lunged toward her.
"DON'T!" she yelled back, a purely human, shrill sound that cut through the low-frequency growls. She held up her bloody hand, pointing at the Beta's wound. "Clean! Or DIE! Your choice!"
For a crucial, suspended moment, the towering Lion Alpha stopped. He saw the red, the clean pool, and the tiny human doing something impossible and necessary. He stood there, magnificent and baffled, his muscles bunched, his entire being vibrating with the urge to rip her apart for hurting his Beta.
The Shadow Wolf Alpha, Roric, chose that moment to strike. He let out a piercing, chilling howl.
"Attack! While the Lion is blinded by the scent of the strange female!"
In the time it took Elara to turn her head, the battle re-erupted. The Lions roared. The Wolves howled. The air became a flurry of dust, claws, and sheer, kinetic violence.
Elara was irrelevant again, shielded only by the body of the injured Beta. She continued to rinse the wound, praying the strange water had some mineral property that wouldn't kill him.
And that is how I, Dr. Elara Vance, survived my first five minutes in the Beastworld: by proving I could be a moderately less dangerous thing than a serious infection.
She was alive, but she was trapped. And the three magnificent, terrifying Alphas were fighting not just over the spring, but potentially over her.