“You’re a fuckingmonster,” she whispered. The pain and regret lacing her words broke him.
He crashed to his knees, paralyzed by guilt. “What can I do? How can I fix this?”
“You can’t.” She towered over him. “Bring out the beast so that I can have my vengeance.”
She angled the flaming steel so close to his face that sweat pebbled across his forehead, and he squinted his eyes against the excruciating heat.
It was the last straw for his wolf. The creature took over Ronin’s body, the shift so swift and violent that he vomited, bile bursting across his tongue as he bared his fangs.
Don’t hurt her, Ronin begged, but he was no longer in control. All he could do was watch helplessly through his wolf’s eyes as he crouched back onto his hind legs and lunged for Mireille.
She pivoted away with that dancer’s grace, and Ronin crashed through the porch, the stairs crumbling to shards beneath him.
Mireille regained her footing and brandished her sword as a crazed smile tore across her face.
Ronin tried to memorize the sight. Even in her anger, in her hatred, she was glorious.
It was the last thought in Ronin’s mind as his wolf stood, shook off the wooden shards, and rushed for her.
Then a blinding, fiery pain tore through Ronin’s left eye.
And his world evaporated in a swirl of crimson.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Something—orsomeone—had infiltrated her woods.
She could smell him on the wind, beneath the other scents. Rotting leaves. Lingering smoke. The pile of scat she’d used to track her kill. The blood coating her muzzle and spilling from the gash in the deer’s belly.
It had been five days since the incident. She didn’t dare call it anything other than that. Couldn’t.
Every time she thought about him, about what he’d done, about whatshe’ddone, something so violent and ugly and agonizing tore through her that she vowed she’d just stay in her wolf form for eternity.
Could a Fae die from a broken heart? Or would the wound keep healing and re-breaking? An endless, immortal cycle of grief. She’d carried grief all her life, but this time it was worse.
It was so much fucking worse.
She hadn’t shifted into her humanoid form since it had happened. Had burned down the cabin—along with any dreams she’d had of what she and Ronin could have been there—and begun prowling through the Oread Woods, hunting and sleeping and running and forgetting. Or trying to forget.
She licked her chops, sniffing at the air. She knew the scent on the air, a congested, concrete-and-metal stink that reminded her of a city she used to live in. What was its name again? And had she lost the name so quickly in her quest to become more animal than Fae?
Her hackles raised and she growled a warning as the intruder’s scent grew closer, the dry needles cracking beneath approaching footfalls.
A flash of blue appeared between the pines, about a hundred yards away.
For a split second, she thought to turn and run, but her base instincts wouldn’t allow her to abandon her kill.
She stepped over the deer carcass, hiding it behind her mass of muscle and copper fur. No flames, today. She’d practiced with her power as well, during these long, blurry days. Learned to control her fire, to bank it when needed or to use it for warmth. She let the embers smolder within her, waiting. If needed, she’d call upon them to roast this interloper.
She bowed her head and bared her fangs as a Windrider with blond hair and sky-blue feathers stepped into the clearing. Instinctively, she knew he was a threat, though she couldn’t scent any Typhon steel on him.
She realized why when Hugo Skanisse raised a stun pistol at her.
“Hello, Mireille Valette,” he said in that high-pitched voice that grated across her bones. A familiar irritation. “Or should I say MireilleValois.”
She snarled at him, incapable of forming words in her devolved state. She summoned her power and fire crackled along her limbs and torso. Skanisse waved a hand, sending tendrils of wind toward her. One by one, the flames snuffed out.
A seed of fear bloomed in her belly and she twisted around, poised to run.
