Around them, wolves slammed into hybrids with bone-breaking force. A vampire went past in a blur, cloak snapping. Kiara flung something bright and ugly up the slope, and it hit a hybrid mid-leap, detonating in a shower of sparks that smelled like burned ozone and old blood.
Lavinia was already hauling back the two youngest of the Juneau witches, cursing under her breath. Several of the Salem Coven hesitated…then stayed, falling into formation beside Kiara and the vampire, faces hard.
Dani wrenched free of Arthur’s hands and barreled after Lavinia, fury shivering under her skin.
They ran.
Down the mountain, away from the screaming.
Dani hated that most of all.
***
The path blurred under her boots. Wards hummed faintly at the edges of her senses, the hasty work of the witches. Behind them, the sounds of battle rose and fell like a storm, howls, snarls, the strange, horrible half-human screech of a hybrid hit hard.
Edith panted, breath puffing in sharp bursts. “I’m surprised you didn’t put up more of a fight.”
Dani bared her teeth. “If it weren’t for Auri, I would have."
“You did the right thing,” Edith said, “We’re not front-line fighters. Our skills are best utilized elsewhere today. There will be injuries.”
Dani’s heart panged as she thought of Arthur facing down the monstrous hybrids. She shook her head. Focus. She needed to focus. And she needed to make sure her daughter was safe.
Fenred led the way, long strides eating the ground, a few other wolves flanking the witches. He wasn’t shifted, but his wolf rode close to the surface, scent sharp with focus. Every so often, he’d glance uphill, jaw tightening, then push them faster.
They hit the tree line above town. The familiar shapes of Skymist spread out below, deceptively peaceful. Smoke from chimneys. The dull glow of streetlights. Somewhere, a truck engine.
“Keep moving,” Fenred barked, “we get you inside, we lock it down.”
No one argued now.
The Nordan compound crouched on the outskirts, half-hidden behind a row of warehouses and a line of skeletal birches. From the road, it looked like any other abandoned industrial site, corrugated metal walls, a sagging chain-link fence, a rusted sign that still read KAVIK FISHERIES in flaking blue paint.
Wards shivered over its skin like heat-haze.
As they approached, two wolves stepped out of the shadow of the gatehouse, human-shaped but not human at all. Arthur’s men. They took one look at Dani, at the cluster of witches, at Fenred’s face, and hauled the gate open without a word.
Lavinia paused, eyes narrowing at the ruined structure. “I think not,” she said, “I will return to Thistlehouse to prepare medicine.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Layla, “you’ll need all the hands you can get.”
“No,” Fenred snarled, and Lavinia leveled him with a cool look.
“You do not command me, wolf. I will do as I please, and I dare you to try and stop me. Or the Luna of the Volkhov, for that matter.”
Fenred looked like he was about to argue, then, with a snarl, stalked inside, “The rest of you, with me.”
Lavinia made a face, “Go on now,” she said, ushering the other witches inside, “you’ll all be safest in there. We’ll regroup later.”
Dani didn’t need to be told twice. She needed to find her daughter.
Inside the compound, the illusion dropped.
Concrete gave way to old, solid timber. The factory narrowed into a long, low building with halls branching off, an armory, an infirmary, and communal rooms. Wolves crisscrossed the corridors, some half-dressed from a shift, others already geared for another.
Dani barely registered it.
“Aurelia?” she demanded, grabbing the nearest Nordan female by the arm. “Where is she?”
