One of them pretends to trip, dragging it out, toying with her, a predator playing with its prey before the kill. Then the varkuun rips her in two. So easily, organs spilling on the stoned floor, as if it were nothing but dirt.
The brutality of it freezes me, and I throw up. Bile burning, choking, coughing as I try to breathe while a cold hand holds my curls up. Whipping my face with my cloak, I finally spot some legion soldiers, and they are losing ground. One shifts mid-leap, claws extended, only for a spiked club to slam into his chest and send him flying. He hits the cobblestones with a sickening crunch, the wolf coughs up blood before he stops moving, his fur matted. And still, the demons come.
“Run!” Sam shouts, voice shaking. “Now!”
I don’t look back, I can’t, and we run. Dodging overturned carts and broken stalls. My feet barely touch the ground, and we keep going, keep running, and make it to the forest.
Safe, for now.
We tumble into a meadow, huffing and puffing.
“I gotta go back! Alek’s still alive! That demon has him!”
“We will,” Sam says, but I see a small flicker of doubt. “But first, we need help. My brother… I wasn’t supposed to leave, but I had to find you. I knew something bad was gonna happen.”
“You knew?” I shout, unable to hold back that volcano of anger and fear.
“I didn’t really, I overheard stuff. A patrol came and informed my dad that a village on the western border had been raided. My belly felt weird, and I knew something was wrong.” I blow out a breath, the same foreboding feeling that overwhelmed me earlier.
It’s always been me, Freya, Sam and Alek, always. So I hug him. He didn’t know everything, but he knew enough to come looking for us. And that’s what matters.
The wind shifts, a shadow moves overhead, and the woods go quiet, too quiet. Then that scream again; soul-ripping.
“WATCH OUT!” Sam yells, pushing me to the ground. A whoosh of air stuns us momentarily while the creature flies back into the grey sky, the sun hidden by dark clouds.
A harpy.
The creature is horrifying, ancient. A monster with the upper body of a haggard, crone-like woman twisted with age and hate. Her skin is weathered and wrinkled, stretched tight over her bones. Her arms, powerful black wings and her legs are long with razor-sharp talons.
The harpy’s eyes are burning with a predatory intelligence as she comes straight for us. But then, from the shadows, a flash of white. A wolf throws itself between us and the demon.Growling low and deep, warning it, before they crash together, claw against claw, tooth against talon. She shrieks, but the wolf doesn’t budge. Bleeding, battered, but unwavering. Finally, the demon flees, retreating into the clouds, andthe wolf turns to us.And I am on guard,muscles tightening.
“I’m sorry,” Sam says softly, eyes on the white wolf. “I shouldn’t have left.” They continue their communication, but I'm deaf to it, using their lycan abilities. Except I don't have time to interrogate Sam about what his annoying brother is saying.
A scream tears from my throat as talons slash into my shoulder, and I’m ripped from the ground. Pain explodes through me, eyes watering. Sam’s face is getting smaller below me, and the white wolf howls its torment evident.
I try to fight, to scream, to cast something, anything, but the air is cold. Coming at me like glass shards cutting on their way, and my voice gets lost in the wind. The harpy is taking me, and wherever we’re going, I know nothing good is waiting for me.
I jolt awake,breath catching in my throat, surfacing from drowning. For a second, I’m not sure where I am, what’s real and what’s not. Then the images come flooding back, as an old film set on repeat, but it wasn’t a dream.
Not this time.
A memory, dark and jagged, burned into the back of my mind, a scar I can’t unsee. My hand instinctively finds my right shoulder, fingers brushing over the mark, crooked, cruel, still tender. It’s small, but it might as well be branded there. Asouvenir from the creature that ripped through my life, the day everything shifted. When normal became a distant concept.
I try to hold on to the details, push through the fog. Ineedto remember. But the pain hits hard and fast. White-hot, electric, and I can’t help the sound that escapes me, a grunt, raw and real. My vision swims, and time stretches thin like it’s about to snap.
Through the haze, I catch the shape of someone. Tall, moving toward me. Their voice cuts through the static.
“…lyna!Vi!”
And then, nothing.
25
Kai
COMES BACK UNINVITED
I wantedto bite those lips so bad, it scared the hell outta me. Sure, I’ve had thoughts. Plenty of them, sins are no stranger to me, especially when they come wrapped in a pretty face. But usually, once that temptation is outta sight, it’s outta mind, no attachments, no ghosts.
