I glance over my shoulder, scanning the shadows between trees. I don’t see anything. But that means nothing.
My wolf barks at me, ordering me to keep going. I obey.
When I look forward again, I come to a staggering stop.
The man steps out from behind a wide pine tree. Tall and skinny, with a long black coat and auburn hair that brushes the tips of his ears. Pungent with the same corrupt power as the triplets. His smile spreads slowly as his eyes skim over me, pausing on the blood and dirt staining my clothes, then settle on the baby still wailing against my chest.
“That really is an awful sound they make,” he muses, voice lazy like we’re having a casual chat. “Their bones are so fragile at this age. All it takes is one quick twist and just like that, it’s silent again.”
I stay still, watching every one of his microexpressions and muscle twitches. I don’t blink, refusing to give him even a millimeter of a second’s worth of an advantage over me.
“The sisters told me to stay back,” he continues. “Keep an eye out for escapees. I saw you bolt into the trees, and that little vermin in your arms made it nice and easy to follow. All that screaming…”
My wolf is clawing forward, livid, as a low growl burns at the back of my throat.
The man’s smile widens.
“Come quietly, and I won’t hurt her. Not one blonde hair. But if you fight—” He shrugs, voice turning sharp. “Then I’ll bleed you both, leaving just enough to keep you breathing. Apparently, you’re spoken for.”
Desperate, I reach for it again. That magic I weaved before, the strange energy that came to life when I needed it most. I search in vain, begging for it to return.
Once more, I’m met with nothing.
“I’m begging you,” I whisper, hating the crack in my thin voice, but hating more this is my last line of defense. Pleading for mercy from someone I already know isn’t capable of showing it. “Don’t do this.”
His laugh bends him in half, hands on his lean thighs as he looks up at me with something close to delight.“Begging,” he echoes. “Darling, don’t you know some of us live for that?”
He steps forward.
And the trees explode.
Something massive crashes through the brush to my left, too fast to track. A blur of gray-and-black fur slams into the witch. It hits him like a freight train, sending him flying several feet through the air. He hits the forest floor with a sickening thud, the force knocking the air from his lungs. Wheezing, he scrambles to roll, to get up, but a heavy paw pins him to the damp earth.
The wolf doesn’t wait. His jaw snaps down on the man’s jugular, claws ripping through his sternum like paper at the same time. Blood sprays. The start of a scream is swallowed by a sickening, wet choke.
I spin away, curling protectively around Ivey, shielding her from the violence and gore.
It was so fast, part of me doesn’t believe it actually happened. I don’t want to turn back. I half expect to find the man still standing there, that wicked, hungry gleam residing in his eyes.
But I have to look. I need to be sure.
Peeking over my shoulder, the witch is exactly where I last saw him—on his back, blood seeping into the soil beneath him. But the wolf…the wolf’s shifting. Dark fur melts away, revealing golden skin that stretches over thick, defined muscle. He rises from a crouch, tall and broad, his back to me.
Then his head turns.
Four silver scars that run along his temple into his hairline catch the dim light.
I know those scars—I know thisman. Deaf, blind, and broken beyond repair, I would still recognize him anywhere.
Rennick.
He’shere.
My lungs stop working when he finally faces me, and for a moment, my mind refuses to believe it. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t even be close. But it’s really him, standing there with his wide chest rising and falling fast with exertion, one of his hands and his chin are coated in fresh blood. There’s a wild, bordering on feral, look gleaming in his gunmetal eyes.
My body reacts before my mind can catch up, my wolf pushing forward, brushing against my ribs in a sweep that’s equal parts need and relief.
Because he came.
