Prologue
Uganda—present day
“Get on your knees,” a cold voice commanded.
Eden Matthews sank to her knees. Half a dozen men and women next to her did the same. One woman was sobbing, and a man was begging for his life. But Eden saw no mercy in the eyes of the man who stood in front of her holding a gun to her head.
All around them the jungle was quiet. Even the animals and insects seemed to have sensed the danger and elected to stay still. She stared at the barrel of the gun, her gaze fixed on the circular black hole, then forced herself to look her soon-to-be-murderer in the eyes. The man was unshaven, mid-forties, his clothing splattered with blood and mud. Behind him were four other men with stony, empty black eyes, all armed. They were a mix of white and black men, and the heavy weapons they carried meant they were most likely rebels. Or worse—poachers.
“We were supposed to be safe,” one woman whispered to herself. “This is a national park. We have permits . . .”
Permits didn’t matter to men like these—these were the true monsters of the jungle.
“Keep your mouths shut,” the leader snapped. She didn’t dare take her eyes away from him. His gun swung a few inches to Eden’s left at the older woman who’d spoken.
Eden’s heart was beating so fast she was amazed she hadn’t had a heart attack. These men wouldn’t let them go. They were going to kill them and leave their bodies in the Ugandan jungle, never to be found. The gorillas she had come to photograph had fled before these men had arrived, as if they had sensed the danger. If they were poachers, and the gorillas had been their intended target, Eden at least hoped the majestic creatures were far away and safe.
“Cash, what we gonna do with them, eh?” one of the men asked their leader.
“Shut up—I’m thinking,” he growled. His eyes swept over the group of visitors and their two Ugandan guides.
“The boss wouldn’t like witnesses,” the other man added.
“True.” The one called Cash stroked his beard, and then, with terrifying slowness, he swept the gun to the forehead of the man at the far end of the tourist group and fired. Eden jerked as his body fell face-first onto the leaf-covered ground.
Several more bangs echoed in the small clearing, and more bodies fell.
Eden wasn’t able to close her eyes. Fear had so immobilized her that she simply couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. She could only watch.
“Maybe we keep one alive?” Cash volunteered to his men with a cruel laugh. “These other bitches were old. But this one, she’s fresh and young. We can have our fun with her first. The boss would never need to know.”
Lungs burning, Eden sucked in a breath, her back aching from being stiff on her knees.
“Yes, I think we’ll keep her.” Cash lowered his gun, but Eden didn’t relax. Whatever hell was about to come next for her would be far, far worse than a quick death.
Blood roared in her ears, so loud that the trees actually seemed to tremble and the ground to vibrate.
Wait, no. That sound wasn’t in her head. It was coming from somewhere else, somewhere distant, but near enough to frighten the men closest to her.
“What the fuck was that?” Cash demanded.
“Mnyama,” one of the men murmured in Swahili. “Mnyama Anakuja!”
Eden didn’t speak much Swahili, but it sounded like he said, The beast is coming.
“A silverback?” Cash asked.
The man shook his head. “No. The pale ghost.”
“Pale ghost? What the fuck are you talking about?”
Two of the men exchanged glances and just ran. They vanished into the moss-covered hagenia trees that formed the canopies high above them.
Cash spun around, firing shots in their direction before he turned back toward Eden. The roar echoed again, sending birds into flight and small monkeys in the trees scampering away.
“We should go!”
The other men clambered away at once, but Cash shouted at them. “Not until I kill this one.” He pointed his gun at her again.
Eden closed her eyes tight. She imagined her parents’ faces back in Arkansas, could see the door of her childhood home. She choked down her despair and longing to be there in that moment and not here—anywhere but here.
The gun went off. Eden experienced a second of stunned surprised because she still felt the jungle air thick with moisture and smelled the heavy scent of sweat around her. She was dead, so why did she still smell the jungle?
“Ah!” Cash’s scream came a millisecond later, followed by a sickening crunch.
Eden didn’t dare open her eyes as she heard the sounds of violence—screams and snapping bones.
The beast was here. Her stomach churned as she swallowed down the rise of bile in her throat and her breath escaped in rapid pants of terror. She would be next. The long silence that followed made her brave enough to open her eyes, slowly taking in the scene of carnage. Cash lay dead a dozen feet away, his neck twisted right around. That was something.
The other tourists she had come with were all dead, but they had been left untouched by the beast. She swallowed hard as tears blurred her vision.
The sound of footsteps behind her and a huffing noise caused her to flinch and close her eyes again. Body heat and hot breath on the back of her neck sent a chill down her spine and stirred her hair. The beast was still here. She was next.
Please, let it kill me quickly.
A grunting noise, similar to the ones made by the gorillas, came from behind her. Something touched her ponytail. She gasped and threw herself to the ground on pure instinct, her hands crunching into the leaves beneath her. The beast moved somewhere in front of her. When she dared to look, her lips parted but no sound escaped.
A man crouched in front of her, ten feet away. His tan skin was covered with blackened, drying mud, making him look more monster than man. His long dark hair hung in loose tendrils down around his shoulders. His eyes were a vivid dark blue, and they narrowed on her as his full lips pressed into a hard frown.
In one hand the man held a blade. His other hand was curled into a fist. She watched the corded muscles of his forearm ripple as he shifted and moved. There was a lithe grace to his nearly naked body as he shifted back and forth on his bare feet. A loincloth of animal skin covered his groin but left his legs bare to her view. He chuffed at her softly, like a jaguar. But the strangest thing, perhaps, was a band of gold that rested on his brow like a crown, the precious metal shaped into small leaves like a laurel wreath.
He gestured with his balled fist to the man on the ground and grunted again.
Eden blinked, unsure what to do or say. This man had saved her. But who was he? Where had he come from? Why was he grunting instead of speaking?
“Hi,” she whispered, and he halted in his gestures. “Do you understand me?”
The man tilted his head to the side, and his nostrils flared. It was hard to read his face with the mud streaked across it.
“Hello?” She tried to greet him again. The word hello was also used in Swahili, in case he spoke that rather than English.
He slowly straightened to a towering height, and she got to her feet as well. Eden kept her distance, not knowing what to expect with this wild man.
She tried some Swahili and continued to stare at him. “Kiswahili?”