Irony’s a bitch. Yesterday, I’d been training rogues, teaching them just enough to be dangerous, but holding back the real shit, the stuff that keeps you alive when everything goes sideways. Now those same rogues were hunting me. The sound of their howls were already too close for comfort.
My jaws clenched carefully around my phone. Couldn’t risk crushing it, not when it was my only lifeline to the outside world. The screen was cracked and smeared with my saliva, but it was all I had to cling to.
I leapt over a fallen log, heart pounding as I ran. Being a lone wolf had its advantages: no pack politics, no alpha breathing down your neck. But times like this, racing through enemy territory with my hide literally on the line, the disadvantages became painfully clear.
Then again, I’d known I was living on borrowed time for quite a while now.
My claws dug into soft earth as I cut sharply left, away from the trap line I’d helped install last week. The western edge of the property was my only chance. I’d spent endless hours studying the wards, identifying weaknesses, creating my own. A narrow corridor, just wide enough for one wolf if he was willing to risk a little singed fur.
Always have an exit strategy. That was rule number one in this line of work. Rule number two? Never trust a Dark witch who keeps still-beating hearts on a shelf.
The forest thinned ahead, moonlight spilling through gaps in the canopy. I could smell the narrow creek that fronted the boundarywith old man Gillespie’s farm. Two more minutes at this pace, and I’d cross it.
Ralph Gillespie. The thought of the old farmer brought a humorless chuff from my throat. I’d met him exactly once in my time here when I’d seen him fixing a fence on the other side of the creek. Old as dirt, weathered face, eyes that had seen too much shit to be impressed by anything. Pure human, as far as I could tell, but smart enough to see that something wasn’t right after Jonathan Bell’s death.
“Good fences make good neighbors,” he’d drawled when he caught me watching him. “Especially when your neighbor’s a bitch who thinks evil is a personality trait.”
I hadn’t laughed then, but I almost wanted to now.
The treeline thinned ahead, revealing a strip of open ground before the creek. Fifty yards of exposed terrain before the boundary. The moon hung three-quarters full, illuminating the landscape with harsh clarity. No cover. No shadows to hide in. Just a straight sprint across open ground, with who knew what surprises waiting to be triggered.
Tactical assessment time. The rogues were closing in behind me. Arabesque herself was likely at the farmhouse, marshaling her more dangerous forces. The Gravewrought, probably. And me? I had to make it across open ground, wiggle through the wards, cross the creek, and leap over the property line.
Simple, I scoffed to myself.
I burst out of the treeline, muscles burning, lungs heaving, eating up the moonlit ground with each stride. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, drowning out even the sound of my own paws hitting the ground. So close. Freedom wasso fucking closeI could taste it, sharp and sweet like the first breath after nearly drowning.
Twenty yards to the wards. Fifteen. Ten.
Magic prickled across my fur, growing stronger with each step.
Five yards.
Bunching up my hindquarters, I leapt across the wardline, either about to die or about to live just a little longer.
Fortunately, I’d calculated correctly. The narrow corridor I’d created held, allowing me through with only minor wounds rather than the full force of Arabesque’s defenses, which would have turned me to ash. It was still like running through a goddamn microwave. Every hair stood rigid, sparking blue static that made my eyes water, but I landed on the other side, still moving. Still alive.
And the creek was just ahead.
I’d done it! I’d outplayed the infamous Arabesque Harrow! I’d slipped through her fingers—
The raven flew over my head, its body jerking with unnatural motion, more machine than anything alive.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t notice, darling?” Arabesque’s voice came from the speaker lodged in its throat.
I pushed harder. The creek was right there, maybe thirty yards away.
“Oh, come now, Foster,” Arabesque cooed with false affection. “We both know this will end with your pelt as a rug in my bathroom.”
The ground ahead of me erupted in green flames, and I skidded to avoid it, claws digging deep trenches in the dirt, but the fire licked out like hungry serpents, catching my left flank and shoulder. A thousand needles drove into me, each one white-hot and pulsing.
Devil’s Breath.
A mercurial flame straight off the River Styx. Zane called it hell’s napalm. I called it death. Even wolf shifters, who could regrow a fucking limb, came away scarred by this shit.Ifthey survived it at all.
Moon Mother have mercy.
I rolled instinctively, slamming into the mud and rotting leaves along the creek’s edge. The sludge smothered some of the flames, but didn’t extinguish. It clung to my fur in patches, eating through to the skin beneath as it tried to burrow through to my soul.
