Page 94 of Werewolves and Witches AU

Pelting it at the hutching offers a few seconds of distraction, and I dart around the corner and slip inside the rooftop access.

With one hand on the concrete wall, and the other on the railing, I jump down the stairs five or six at a time. My hearing is strained toward the doorway behind me, my gaze is fixed firmly on the sharp-edged steps in front of me, and I hurry down as many as I can. If he aims that gun at me in here, it’d be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Janus’s Italian-accented voice rings through the empty stairwell. “I know you’re here, I traced the enchantment.”

Almost blind with fear, I lock my gaze on the access door to the twelfth floor. I have to make it there.

“I learned from our last encounter, Warlock—this time, you’re mine.”

One last leap down the remaining five steps builds enough momentum to power me through the door, and I crash into the upper level of the building. Rolling, I remember to tuck my head, but I lose my cap.

Scrambling to my feet, I race through the rows of neatly presented cubicles. Could I hide in one of these? No. That’s a really stupid idea. Might as well truss myself up like a Christmas turkey and sit my ass on a platter.

Running as fast as I can, I weave on a diagonal past the desks, until I hear Janus’s call out from the open doorway somewhere behind me. “The werewolf was a nice touch; took me a day to heal from the injuries he inflicted.”

I drop to the floor and continue putting distance between us by crawling on my hands and knees.

Janus continues. “But a werewolf won’t survive a wolfsbane-laced silver bullet.”

The mental image of the two guns strapped to his legs urges me onward. The relief that Rowan isn’t here, that I won’t have to witness one of those bullets piercing his pale and freckled flesh, is the only thing that stops me from sobbing out loud.

Hurrying, I finally make it to the far side of the floor, but now… I’m also out of desks to crawl around for cover.

“Temporal magic isn’t all I can do, baby witch.” Janus fires two shots into the ceiling tiles that explode in a shower of plaster dust. “I can also shoot a gun.”

This time, the sob comes anyway, and I clamp down on my lip with my teeth to bite it back.

Desperate, I scurry closer to another door a little further along the wall, timing my movements between the cubicles to match Janus’s footsteps.

“While I was healing from that savage mutt’s bites, I had a lot of time to think. You have the enchantment, but as no one else knows what it is or what it looks like, then when you die, the enchantment dies with you.”

Janus kicks at something, a trashcan maybe, and I use the noise to mask the sound of trying the door handle—unlocked. Finally, some luck!

Risking everything, I roll forward and through the door. Pressing it shut, I sit with my back flush against it.

But there’s nothing fortunate nor helpful about my luck, it seems, because the door has opened onto some kind of tiny balcony. It’s barely big enough for me to sit on, even leaned up against the door as I am.

There’s a very grand and decorative stone balustrade not three feet in front of me. I recognise the architecture as belonging to the capital of the column-like building I spent several minutes staring at from the crossroads on the street far below.

A street I would very much like to get back to. Please and thank you.

The wind whips my hair every which way, but I barely feel its chill.

Coming out here was a mistake—I’m trapped. In a matter of a minute, longer only if Janus decides to torment me by letting me sit with the prospect of my own imminent death, he’s going to burst onto this balcony and put a bullet in my brain.

33

Fucksparagus

Rowan

Turning in a tight circle on the corner of Jefferson and Campbell, my wolf scans every darkened recess, but Milo is nowhere to be seen. I rake my clawed fingers through my hair for the hundredth time.

The tracker on the screen of my phone shows that he’s exactly here. He’s been exactly here for the last fifteen minutes. Except that he isn’t. There’s no one here.

Frustrated, I look up, but all the high-rise buildings here limit my view of the dark-violet sky. Without a claiming bite or a fated bond to follow, being in full wolf form is the only way to narrow down Milo’s exact whereabouts.

Despite the downtown location, I risk letting my wolf come further forward; canines extend over my lower lip and the vista around me changes as I look at it through lupine eyes. Milo’s apple scent is thick in the night air, as if he’s standing just metres away. It’s coated in a layer of my own spiced scent, and the combination produces a shiver that rolls up my spine.