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Our gazes locked, and there was no tenderness in hers as she studied me. A smoke-like shadow thinned and cascaded in slow waves down to her feet, pooling against the powder-white snow. The dark puddle of essence lapped around her boots, coiling like something alive around her ankles.

The silence stretching between us was hollow, leaving my gut twisted and the air around us sick in her wake. Terror flickered through me as the moment dragged on.

The shadows drifting across the pillowy white snow began crawling toward me, leisurely at first, as if they had all the time in the world. That cistus-laced melancholy scent reached my nose before the shadows did. The moment I recognized it, the swarm of darkness surged forward, making my breath catch.

Fatigue vanished from my mind, replaced by a rapid thud in my chest. Confusion flooded every corner of my mind. Not giving her time to explain, my groggy instincts forced my body upright from the frozen ground. Just as I tried to stand, the shadowy essence surged the remaining distance between us and coiled around my ankle.

“Arianna!” I growled, trying to step forward, but it detained me by the boot.

Each time my leg resisted the pull, the darkness swallowed another inch of me. Its grip tightened as it crept higher, climbing my body without mercy. Whatever it was didn’t feel like a phantom, it felt solid. Real. Like flesh pressing against flesh, and it had no intention of letting me leave.

I fought against it, prying at the shadow with my fingers, but it only tightened around me, embedding my body in darkness and pressure from the waist down. When I tried to pull away, it forced me upright again, rigid and helpless. Every part of me wanted to shout that she was a mad woman with no morals. But something told me that would only satisfy her in some strange way.

It looked like she enjoyed seeing me trapped, like she’d been waiting for this moment all day. Arianna watched her shadow’s attack in silence as she slowly circled me. Her power cocooned my body until only my neck and head remained free, forcing me to face her. There was nothing I could do to escape her reckoning.

Arianna approached with a smirk stretching across her face, one hand hidden behind her back. Her silence was deafening once she finally stopped in front of me. Even though I stood taller than her, something about her gaze made my heart skip and fear threaten to bloom in my chest.

The shadow caging me rolled off her like smoke from a fire. It was as if she were the source it burned from. The darkness danced around her, obeying every subtle command from the strands of her hair down to the tips of her toes.

If I’d been able to flinch, I would have when her hand slipped from behind her back and gently rose to touch my face. “My bultungin didn’t kill you.” She paused, glancing over my shoulder toward the forest behind me. “I wonder why that is.” Arianna stepped closer. The citrus in the air sharpened as she closed the distance between us.

Her hand suddenly twisted into a fistful of my hair, yanking my head down to her level. The shadows folded inward at her command, forcing my body into a restrained bow. I didn’t expect her nose to bury itself into the bed of my curls—but it did. She inhaled deeply, taking in my scent.

Another growl escaped my lips. I had no choice but to submit to her hold. “I thought I was just human up until, what, three days ago?” I snapped. “I didn’t even know things like this existed. Let alone what the hell a bultungin was.”

She studied me again, her gaze sharp, like she was hunting for a lie hidden somewhere behind my eyes. Her sly smile vanished without warning.

In one fluid motion, her hand pressed lightly against my shoulder, and her shadows folded me flat against the slick earth. My face was buried in the snow once again. I hit the ground before I could react. Her shadows pinned me there like chains, holding me exactly where she wanted me.

“There’s never any harm in checking,” she said coolly. “And it would be so unkind of me… if I didn’t give you a fair chance. I’m a demon, but I am no monster, Alex. Really.”

This psycho bitch.

Every word that came out of her mouth only fed the fear coiling tighter in my chest. She did nothing to comfort my already frayed nerves. Valentina had some serious explaining to do. I knew she meant well bringing me here, but somehow I was beginning to think it might have been the worst possible decision.

Arianna had used every step of this encounter to make me uncomfortable. And if that wasn’t her intention, if this was simply her nature, that possibility was even worse. “What the hell does that mean?” I asked, my voice edging toward panic. She was getting more unhinged by the second.

From behind us, where the wind whistled through the trees, a chuckle broke into the night.

That same crazed laugh as before drifted toward us, threading through the dark to announce itself. The scent that followed was wild and musky, carried on a breeze that brushed past my nose as if it wanted to be recognized.

The fear I’d felt in the shed came rushing back all at once, colliding with the panic already spiking through my system. If the creature could smell emotions the way vampires did, I was sure it smelled exactly what I felt.

Doubt.

And something close to rot.

“Relax,” Arianna cooed. “He didn’t kill you the first time.” She bent down and placed a hand against my cheek, smiling faintly. “So I doubt he’ll try now.” From the shadows of the trees, the beast emerged—silent and stalking.

Up close, its body was far larger than I remembered. Bigger than most dogs. Even larger than the cougar I’d killed in the forest. Its back was broad, almost human beneath the thick muscle, supported by powerful legs that moved with unsettling grace.

The creature’s yellow eyes glowed in the dark, catching the moonlight. As it crept closer, those yelping laughs rattled up my spine. Before stopping at Arianna’s side, it circled us slowly. Its nose lifted, inhaling the air while its eyes never left my body.

As if it had caught something interesting, it moved toward me again.

I tried to push against the shadows pinning me to the ground, but it was useless. The weight held me firmly in place. As the hyena crept closer, I could hear its breath—hot, damp, almost rabid. It hovered inches from my face before its snout pulled in my scent with a deep inhale. Warm air rushed across the back of my neck as my curls were drawn toward its nose.

Then it paused.