Wildhearts — Ann Vremont

Shaped by his creator in the form of the ancient god Cernunnos, Herne knew only the cold metal of a cage and the sharp blades of his master until he escaped into Tahoma's forest. Now, as the first winter storm of the season gathers, a hunter has entered his woods, bringing a bound and blindfolded woman as game.

Until tonight, Neva had survived as a healer in a gospel town where the monsters walk on two legs and the women do as they are told. “The Girl Who Said No,” she finds herself at the mercy of a jilted suitor and his brutish friends, with the woods her only chance of escape.

Welcome to the future. Seattle lies in fog-shrouded ruins. Fantasy has become reality. Science is the new magic. The year is 2270, and it's time to meet the real beauty and the beast.

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This 14,300+ word Erotic Romance is for readers who enjoy science fiction in a dystopian future featuring a tortured nano shifter and the only woman who can help him re-discover his humanity.
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From the trees, Herne watched the humans -- three men and a woman -- intruding into his forest. Hearing their truck and smelling the stink of animal fat fueling an old diesel engine, he'd gone in search of them. He had finally found them low on the eastern slope of Tahoma, where they had followed the old road all the way up to the small clearing that was its vanishing point.

The men stank with the bitter odor of civilization, their bodies steeped in the scent of alcohol, drugs and tobacco. Smelling the woman's freshly spilled blood and the softer, more pervasive scents that marked her sex as he tracked the men through the trees, Herne bellowed.

The men scattered at his call, the smaller male intent on following the woman, the other two perhaps unnerved by Herne's feral cry. A twinge of conscience told him to follow the woman -- that she was being hunted -- but the other men were unarmed and easy to dispatch. And he might take the armed one by surprise, when the man finally found his prey and foolishly put the weapon down.

Extending his neck, Herne roared again, then slammed his antlers left and right, their wide expanse causing them to bang against the mighty pines on either side of him. It was a challenge, one the men would recognize, if not with their minds then with the marrow of their bones. Male to male, he let them know...

You're in my woods.