“What is it, Yvonne?”I ask through the mind link, and her frown deepens as her eyes become wide with worry.
“It’s Rissa…” she whispers. “I can’t get through to her.”
As if on cue to deepen Yvonne’s worry and turn it into panic, a child’s cry echoes through the woods, filtering from somewhere in the village.
Without warning, Yvonne spins on her heel and rushes out of our hiding spot, emerging into the open where she sprints toward the village, shifting into wolf form midway.
“No, Yvonne! It’s a trap!”I yell out through the mind link, but Yvonne is already charging toward the village. I lift my head to howl as I warn the others of what just happened. Somehow, the demon has interfered with our telepathic communications, and no one seems to hear me. That’s why I couldn’t hear Yvonne trying to reach Rissa, and it’s why no one can hear me now—not even Yvonne.
I rush out after Yvonne, but it’s too late. She’s already disappeared around the pack den toward the village, and I can’t see her ahead. I howl again, calling out to my wolves even if it disrupts our plans.
The demon is doing this on purpose, and it wants to pull a witch away from our group, the way it did with Aurora the first time we lured it to Girdwood. We’d been open and exposed to its attacks then, without a way to fight it.
But that’s not what I’m worried about right now. Yvonne is running right into the trap, and she’s never faced a demon before.
She’s in trouble, and I need to save her. I’m about to charge forward when the other wolves emerge from their spots, the mind link disrupted, so I can’t communicate with the pack. They’ve heard my howl, but now they need to hear my voice, so I shift into human form and yell out,
“Yvonne is in trouble! The demon has tricked her, and it’s blocking our mind links!”
Chapter 25 - Yvonne
Panic drives my every step as I charge for the village. Hearing a child’s anguished cries has me terrified that something has happened to my Gio.
Worse, I can’t connect to Rissa’s mind link. Something must have happened, and they’re in grave danger now.
The dark, eerie mist settled over the village, making it hard to see even through my wolf eyes. But I race ahead, determined to get to the main area where Alpha Elias and Luna Aurora’s house is on the north border of the Snehvolk territory.
Somehow, my instincts carry me into the village, abandoned and quiet because the members of the pack had been warned not to be outside when we lured the demon to our territory. Their houses had all been bound by spells that would ensure the demon dog couldn’t sense their presence, just like the spell Aurora cast on her own home, where she practices her magic in the bunker underneath it.
My mind races with a million questions. How did Gio get found? Did he run out of the house in search of us, and that’s when the demon found him?
I slow down just as the wailing grows louder, thundering through my eardrums and heightening my panic. I snap my furry head in every direction, the air dense with the dark mist that makes it almost impossible to see around me.
Suddenly, the crying stops. Gone, as if it never existed, through the night air, the veil of dark fog lifting to reveal my whereabouts. Somehow, I’d found myself on the north border of the forest that surrounds Snehvolk territory. Caught between the tall trees, the trunks surrounding me with the open meadow ahead, I soon realize why this scene feels so chillingly familiar.
I’ve seen this before, in my psychic visions that had come briefly a few times over the past few weeks while I’ve been in Girdwood. My wolf senses it too, whimpering in recognition as fear and dread wash over me, retracting my fur and leaving me to face what comes next in human form.
Gasping when I witness the materialization of the dark, malevolent spirit in front of me, I’m too stunned to move, freezing on the spot on watching every treacherous second it takes for the demon dog to morph into its physical form. It draws from the surrounding fog, black licks of smoke twirling into a mass that resembles a werewolf only in its size. The demon’s physical form is a hideous black mass shaped like a shaggy dog, its eyes dark pits of terror as a purple comes out to lap at its face.
The demon stalks forward, its hellish eyes keeping me pinned in place as I’m arrested by fear, almost forgetting that I have magic powers that can impede the demon’s mythical force. Snapping out of the trance, I pull my wits together and remember who I am, even if I’m riddled with the guilt and shame of being fooled into one of the demon’s tricks despite the others’ many attempts to warn me about this very situation I’ve found myself in.
I push through my inner conflict with myself, not lingering on self-loathing, so I can get myself out of this situation. Tapping into my mystical abilities, I feel my powers igniting in the depths of my eyes as my vision sharpens to focus on the demon as it stalks toward me, its paws barely touching the ground as it floats forward, still licking its lips as if its eyes have set on its ultimate prey.
I feel the power whirling in my palms, and my lips lift in a smirk because I can feel how strong the magic is, and I’m confident that I can hurt the demon enough to run back to theothers. A gentle whirring sound erupts around me like a shield of silver, translucent mist that gathers my powers until I’m ready to strike.
When I feel the intense energy coursing through my veins, I let it out, palms faced at the demon just as it’s about to close the distance. Thunderous bolts of sparkling silver light shoot out of my palms, aimed at the demon, but it dodges each strike as if anticipating every one.
I have to be smarter, needing to momentarily distract the demon when it doesn’t remove its eyes from me. That’s when I face my palms out, throwing electric bolts into the trees on either side of me, erupting the trunks in hot licking flames of silver. The demon slows down, its eyes flitting to the left for the split second that’s needed for me to hurl lightning bolts of magic at the demon’s face.
Two spears of electric pulses slice its face, one across its cheek, the other between its onyx eyes, and it whimpers and screeches as it’s knocked off the paws that were levitating above the snow-covered ground just now. It shakes its limbs out and hits the ground on its side, appearing to have morphed fully into its physical form.
This is when the demon is susceptible to physical harm, and I snap my head in the direction of the burning tree behind me, looking for something I can use as a weapon. But when I spin in the direction of the broken branch I spotted, my breath catches, and I’m struck frozen again when another two demon dogs appear through the fiery smoke.
There’s no way I can get out of this one. I’m toast if it’s just me against three evil creatures. Just as I’m about to cave onto my knees and sob, someone grabs my arm and pulls me upright.
“Aurora…” I gasp when I realize the cloaked figure is none other than the main luna of Snehvolk. She nods firmly, her eyes ablaze with the lilac color of her magic as she grabs my hand and presses her palm to mine.
“Now!”
