“I don’t have a soul to take out.”
“What are you talking about? Everyone has a soul.”
“Not me,” he assures her. “I’ve looked.”
She fixes him with a glare. “That’s ridiculous. Youhaven’tlooked.”
“Says who?” He wrestles her bag from her, engaging in a brief but fervent tugging match over the strap before she relents. “Let’s go. Thorley’s outside, and I’ve noticed his temple starts to throb when he’s mad. It’s not good for him. He’ll give himself a coronary.”
•••
They find Asher waiting with Poppy Zahar alongside the bikes. The cold has slapped pink into his cheeks, pinched the tip of his nose red. He watches them approach, his gaze too assessing. He’s looking, Lysander knows, for signs of a feed. Lysander stares back at him, hard and unblinking, daring him to ask. Itching for a fight.
Your sick little kicks.
In the end, he doesn’t ask. He glances skyward and says, “Two hours until dawn.”
“More or less.” Lysander stuffs Shea’s things into his tail bag. “If we take the Gravewood roads, we can make it to Killington before then.”
“Killington? That’s a bad idea. We’d be better off sticking to the coastal highway. There’s easier access to working gas stations. Rations. Places to stay.”
“The Gravewood is safer.”
“For you, maybe,” counters Asher, handing off a helmet to Poppy. “Not for me. Not for Zahar. Not forParker.”
Next to Lysander, Shea bristles. “Don’t say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re provoking him.”
“Yeah,” says Lysander, lifting his chin to fasten his helmet. “Don’t provoke me.”
Asher flips down his visor, but not before Lysander catches the beginnings of something uncouth. Flicking Asher two thumbs-up, he hands off a helmet to Shea and climbs onto the bike.
On the bike beside him, Asher tugs on his gloves. Poppy settles in just behind him. Her oversized rat has been stuffed into a knitted sling, and it bares its teeth at anyone unlucky enough to look at it.
“Did you need to bring the roadkill?” Lysander calls over to her as Shea swings her leg into place at his back.
“His name is Kit,” says Poppy. “And he’s essential to the mission.”
Whatever he might have said in reply is lost as Shea’s arms wrap around his middle. He feels like Aglauros, turned to stone and set on the steps of purgatory. Because if there’s a hell, surely it is this—holding himself still while Shea Parker’s hands lace across his stomach.
The feeling that courses into his blood isn’t hunger. It’s something else. Something too sharp to name, too dangerous to examine. He squeezes the clutch and the bike leaps to life beneath him. Shea’s grip goes tight enough to cut off his oxygen, her helmet pressing into his spine.
He grins like a fool into the lining of his lid.
With the lodge lit like a votive at his back, he pulls out onto the main drive and signals for Asher to follow. They knife in and out of the rubble, headlights carving bars of yellow along the bore-dark trees as they descend the mountain switchbacks, the river-black roads carrying them away from Mercy Ridge.
He came to New Hampshire to carve out a kingdom. To make a name for himself—Oliver Lysander, devil of Mercy Ridge. Leader of his own pack. Keeper of his own fate. Paris Keeling is chipping away at his defenses, which means it’s time to go on the offense.
He won’t lose. Not this fight. Not with Shea holding tight to his middle, her heartbeat in his spine. Not when he finally has something worth carving out. All those years biting his tongue bloody, reciting words with no meaning and waiting for the dawn.
He’s not a frightened little boy anymore, gutless and disobedient. He’s a god.
This time he’ll take the fight directly to Paris Keeling’s doorstep.
This time, he’ll finish it.
