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No, it wouldn’t. I’d already tried that, more than once. Still, it was better than pacing around the keep aimlessly. “Fine.”

“We can get wasted, then go on a demon killing spree,” Asher said and grinned.

Sometimes I thought the warrior had a death wish. She pretended that she was fine, but I knew she wasn’t. I was there when she felt Boone slip away, and for a while, I thought we’d lose her as well. “If you ever want to talk…”

Someone screamed.

I ran for the door, Ash right behind me.

Anna, one of our females, stood in the middle of the field screaming as rats, at least fifty of them, swarmed around her, heading straight for the keep.

I ran out, trying to divert them, but they didn’t stop. What the fuck was this? Asher cursed, kicking at them as they surrounded us.

They stopped suddenly, beady little eyes all staring up at me.

Asher glanced at me. “So…this is fucking weird.”

I stomped and waved my arms, but they didn’t budge. No, they sat like a pack of little fucking dogs.

One of them scurried up to me. It stopped at my feet, watching, waiting expectantly.

It was dark, but I could see something matted its fur. Was that…

Blood.

A lot of it. The rat didn’t appear injured; it just stayed there, staring up at me.

“Draven, what the hell is it doing?” Asher said.

I crouched down. “I don’t think the blood is his….” Iris’s scent hit me, and my wolf exploded to the surface. “Iris!”

My heart smashed against the back of my ribs as my wolf spun in frantic circles. I needed to find her. She was hurt. She needed me.

The rat turned and headed back the way it came, then stopped and looked back at me.

“I think it wants you to follow,” Asher said.

She was right.

Fuck.

Iris had sent them for me. She was using her magic to control them—the same way Charity used to. I growled, shoving Charity from my head, stripped off, and shifted. Asher did the same, along with Dirk and a couple more of my warriors who had come to see what was going on.

The rats turned and ran.

And we followed.

I just hoped I wasn’t too late.

It was nearly dawn by the time we reached our destination, a wood, dank and dead and forgotten. Shadow Falls. We never came here. Everything about this place repelled us. This was a place for witches, a place of dark magic, of evil deeds, and death.

What the fuck was Iris doing here?

The rats didn’t slow, didn’t change course.

Asher was on my right, Dirk on my left, and I felt their trepidation as we neared the falls themselves, as the thunder of water crashing into the river below roared around us. The rats scurried along a rocky path, disappearing behind the massive curtain of water.

You don’t have to follow.