This time the thought shook the foundations of Nick’s brain. He cowered from the rage in it, huddled back into the corner of his own skull like a child in front of his gran’s unpredictable temper. When he pulled himself back together again, his fingers were tight around the throttle and the cottage had been left behind in the storm.
Nick shuddered. He could still taste stale breath on his tongue, and the corners of his brain still felt stiff and unresponsive. His fingers were locked around the handles of the bike, although he couldn’t tell if it was the compulsion or the cold that stiffened his knuckles.
Ahead, Gregor twisted around to check on him. Even through the snow, Nick could feel the concern as Gregor’s eyes fell on him. He shuddered, took a breath, and forced one hand free to lift his chilled fingers in acknowledgment.
Whatever had happened, it was done now. Nick couldn’t go back. Alive or dead, Boyd would have to fend for himself.
Gregor accepted Nick’s reassurance. He gestured with one hand, forward and then a sharp curve to the left. Nick didn’t know what he meant but nodded anyhow. He would follow Gregor’s lead.
Irritation pecked at the inside of his head, and he heard the dry rustle of mantled feathers. It felt distant, muted, but a thread of tension in Nick’s stomach finally loosened at the promise something was still there.
He didn’t know if this was the life he would have chosen, but it was what he had. It was what heneeded—to survive this, to keep Gregor. Love was one thing, but nobody would trade a partner for a burden.
Nick blinked as the world ahead blurred. He thought it was the Wild until he felt the pinch as the tear froze on his cheek. He sniffed and wiped his sleeve over his face. His tears stained the fabric with salt and blood, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that.
Ahead of him Gregor took a sharp left up an unevenly steep hill and into a copse of trees. Nick spluttered out a curse under his breath and followed suit. The quad slid under him, tipped, and then steadied. The engine complained and spluttered as it bounced over rocks and potholes hidden under the snow.
He caught up with Gregor and Ewan just past the tree line. They’d stopped next to an old yew tree, the bike tilted up almost sideways on the scored roots. Nick made a messy, precarious stop a few feet away but didn’t turn the ignition off. The thought of the silence that would fall once he killed the low growl of metal and petrol was daunting.
Gregor dragged Ewan out of the saddle and over to Nick. He ignored Nick’s instinctive protest and kicked Ewan’s feet from under him to put him on his knees in the snow.
“Keep him here,” Gregor said. He flipped the knife in his hand and held it out, blade first, to Nick. “I need to see how close they are.”
Nick reluctantly took the knife. He supposed that technically he could use one, but it sat in his hand differently than a scalpel or a bread knife.
“If anything happens, kill him and run,” Gregor said. He cupped his hand around the back of Nick’s neck and pulled him into a quick, rough kiss. “I’ll find you.”
Nick smiled against Gregor’s lips. “I know.”
Gregor rested his forehead against Nick’s and then pulled away and jogged back out of the trees. Ewan watched him go.
“Was that a promise or a threat?” Ewan asked. He spat in the snow, phlegm streaked with red, to make his opinion clear.
“He finds me, or I find him,” Nick said. He finally turned off the bike. The sudden silence was as oppressive as he’d imagined. “That’s how it works.”
“Not this time,” Ewan said. “You can’t outrun them. Once Rose sets them on your trail, they won’t eat or drink or stop until she’s satisfied. They are tenacious things, her new breed.”
“And that’s what you call salvation?” Nick absently worked his shoulder, the memory of his gran’s wolf-mawed bite still locked into the tendons and marrow long after the bird had healed him. “I’d rather freeze.”
Ewan gave him a hard look. “Easy to say, boy,” he said. “You don’t know what you’d pick until the choice is put to you. Death is a cold place, and you’re there a long time.”
“I know,” Nick said. His voice was empty, the trauma stripped out of it. “Better than you. Better than those soldiers you’re marinating for her, softening up the meat. Even if she gives them a choice, they don’tknowwhat it’s going to do to them.”
“You misjudge her gift,” Ewan argued. “The ugliness of it now will pass, like a fever, and they’ll—”
“They’ll still be monsters,” Nick said. “And that’s what she wants. Trust me, I don’t misjudge my gran.”
“Rose is a visionary,” Ewan said. “She’s made hard choices, but only the ones she had to make.”
“Like killing me?” Nick asked. “Or killing my mother, your daughter—”
“Don’t believe the wolves,” Ewan insisted. “She’d never do that. Whatever the Numitor’s boy told you your whole life, Rose was looking for you. She’d never hurt you.”
Nick snorted and yanked down the zipper of his coat. The cold nipped at him, but he ignored it as he dragged the sweat-stained T-shirt up. His shoulder had healed when he died and came back, but the older scars lingered—the one across his stomach, stretched tight and rucked where it had stretched with his growth. Ewan glanced at it and then flinched away, but he couldn’t stop his gaze being drawn back to the betraying scar.
“She hurt me plenty,” Nick said. “Gran tortured me as kid, terrorized me, and then, when she found me again… she killed me.”
Ewan shook his head. “You’re wrong. You… she didn’t have time to explain. You never knew her.”
