PROLOGUE
PROLOGUESatan stared at me, his giant amber eyes burning into mine with unblinking predatory intelligence. A hot wind blew through the trees. Insects buzzed all around my face. My heart pounded a wild rhythm in my ears. I was miles from safety, in the middle of the wilderness, face to face with one of the most vicious lions in the South African bush.
The infamous Satan was stalking me.
A bright orange sun was still rising over the plains as Satan poked his enormous head from the nearby shroud of trees where he had been crouching. He stepped into the red dirt clearing and came to a stop midstride next to the still-smoldering campfire. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the woodsmoke. We were standing not twenty feet apart on the crest of a koppie, a small rocky hill jutting up from the grasslands.
I stood motionless as a statue, doing my best to return Satan’s intense gaze. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead and cheeks. I was straining every fiber of my being to suppress my urge to run. He was so close I could smell his rotten breath. A blackish crust of dried blood lined the edges of his mouth. His dark red mane was almost the exact color of my own. From his snarling lips a series of terrifying sounds emerged: low grunts and huffs that grew into loud, agitated growls.
He held his tail rigid, in hunting mode.
A rifle I barely knew how to use was lying in the dirt between me and the gigantic feline. There was a single bullet in the chamber. Should I lunge for the gun or make a run for it? Or should I summon the courage to hold my ground as Chris had taught me?
Frozen in place, too afraid to make a decisive maneuver, and not daring to twitch a muscle lest I trigger the lion’s attack instincts, I knew then and there that no matter what happened now, I would never leave Africa intact. Even if I managed to survive, the person I had been before arriving here three days ago would never make it out alive.
As Satan inched closer, I suddenly recalled the sound I’d heard my first night on safari. Under a full moon—a Poacher’s Moon, they called it—a life-shattering cry unlike any I’d ever encountered had come shrieking out of the night. That awful, unforgettable cry had drawn me into this crazed adventure, and now it had delivered me straight into the jaws of danger.
Satan took another bold, feline step toward me while I tried to stand firm. He balanced the weight of his enormous muscular body on his rear legs, eyes still trained on mine, readying himself for a lethal charge.
I gulped down a breath, struggling to hold his gaze.
Through the pulse of fear still pounding away, I heard something else, an ominous phrase repeating itself. It had come to me like a portent three days ago, a vague premonition murmuring in the recesses of my skull on my very first afternoon in Africa as I’d stood in the vastness of the bushveld soaking in all the fresh sights and sounds and smells—the tall grasses, the endless skies, the intoxicating wildlife, the perilous beauty all around me stretched out in every direction as far as the eye could see.
A faint whisper on the wind had carried Africa’s message of warning to me, one I had failed to heed.
This place will devour you.
