I looked for an escape path, and when I turned back, the writhing mouths were closer. I couldn’t stand there, even if running made my knees feel like they were full of shards of ice. My magic surged, closing the bushes around the monster and I took off. A quick glance behind me showed the creature just poured through the branches like oil and smoke and now it was on the hunt if its slobbering tongues were any indication.
Fear soared white-hot into the back of my throat as my knees gave out and my elbows screamed as I hit them into the forest floor. A whip-like sliver of darkness shot out and wrapped around my ankle. My kitchen knife sliced through nothing. I gripped a tree root. Anything to slow my slide toward the waiting mouths. Ned’s barking grew to the force of a hurricane. My hands felt brittle enough to break.
DECLAN!I screamed into the night, now with the fear of certain death in my voice.
The monster licked its mouths with acid green tongues.
I’m sorry.I said to Declan as my final goodbye, just as my foot touched sharp teeth.
A tongue slithered up my calf before it ripped away. Well, the tongue was still there, but the rest of the monster was suddenly gone, snapped into the jaws of a hulking darkness. I peeled the severed tongue off my leg, regaining my breath to the sound of munching. Acid green pops lit up the trees as the monster’s eyes burst in the even bigger maw.
No. It couldn’t be. Fear raised every hair on my body and heartbreak kept me in place. Because the bone-crunching darkness before me was Declan. I discerned him through the bond. Or at least part of him. It just didn’t look like any Declan I had ever seen before. Pants-wetting terror would be an accurate description seeing the stacked thing vaguely resembling a wolf. The creature was ten times Declan at his largest size. All teeth and claws and sleek muscle, the terror flickered in and out of the darkness as it ate.
An enormous tongue licked its chops as it turned to me with those luminous blue eyes. They should have been reassuring. Except they looked dead. The gleam of his razor teeth and his sheer bulk didn’t help the fear clawing for escape in my chest.
Dec?
Its panting increased, puffing clouds into the air. As it rose to tower above me, I saw it was still partially man. A lupine head topped a muscular male torso that ended in wolf-jointed legs and a tail that swept back into the forest.
Run!It said into my mind.
I wanted to, I really did. My body even jolted at the command. “Not a chance, buster. Go chase Ned.” My joints wouldn’t take much more abuse.
Falling to his scythe-clawed hands, he shook the entire forest to make his point.
Run from the darkness, little creature.
My body flooded with adrenaline but I was used to ignoring it like the betrayer it was. I wouldn’t take off again. I had to face the fact that not everything could be solved by working it to death. A terrifying, drooling, scary-sized Declan was one of those things.
“I’m going to find a place where I can talk to your face.”
If there was anything left in there to communicate with. The fact that he formed coherent words encouraged me up and out of the snow. His breathing down my back was annoying, I decided, instead of terrifying. The thing pacing behind me didn’t even feel like a shifter, let alone a human. How did something as simple as leaving push Declan this far?
I came to a rocky clearing. A jagged set of bouldersmade a kind of natural ramp and I clambered up it to see if I could spot the terror Declan became. I knew he followed, but he had melted back into the night. Ned was right behind me. My fingers dug into his ruff and said, “Where is he, boy? Call him.”
Ned howled into the crisp winter air and the thing that answered made me grateful I was already half sitting down. Out of the mist a shape emerged, prowling around the rock I had trapped myself on. It could eat me for a snack and the glint in its eyes said it might.
Who summoned you, tiny creature?
I think I peed a little at the sound of the strange voice. Where was my sweet Declan? This was all my fault. If I had just allowed myself to be with Dec, it wouldn’t have come to this. I had asked how bad it might get in a few hours and I guess I got my answer. I swallowed hard, screwing up all my courage.
“Stop it. You’re scaring Ned.”
He scored the ground with his claws, leaving great furrows.Ned is lucky I have any fondness left in me. The abyss has no need of it. Be gone, creature, so that I may resume my hunt.
The dog nudged me like I should continue. Continue what, I wasn't quite sure. What in the seven hells was I supposed to do with this giant were-creature? How would I get my wolf back?
“Dec. I know you’re in there.” Please let him be in there. “I need to talkto you.”
A snarl and the stone around me scored with his wrath.Your words carry no weight in the dark. The time for speaking has passed.
That couldn't be true. My stubbornness kicked in. If he was still in my presence, I could persuade him.
So I plunked my ass down on the rock below me because at least that put me somewhat in line with Declan's hip and he wouldn't step on me. I took a deep breath to work some magic. Well, a whole lot of magic. Because I knew the one thing that always made everything better.
Ned lay at my back as a safety blanket, clearing my mind to work. The Locot was so simple. It didn’t take much time to summon the ingredients and focus on the perfect bake. No matter that I had no oven, no bowl, not even a fucking wooden spoon. Declan was at stake and I wouldn't fail him again.
As I worked my magic, I wasn’t trying to make it elaborate for once. I didn't have anything to set the cake on after it baked and there was no fancy cake knife or stand to make it look perfect. Just the heavenly aroma of a perfectly baked piece of his childhood wafting into the dark.
