Magic is a shield between us and the remaining wolf. For how long?
Grayson’s gaze darts to the witches and the wolf creeping along the line of the spell to find the weak point.
“It’s not going to hold for long. We’ve got to go.”
“How did you find us? Did you track us?”
“Not the time, Mandi.”
He pulls me to get me moving but the sight of blood, the smell of the moon-mad, leaves me with a swell of queasy heat.
Another shout cuts through the relative silence and Aimee goes down. RJ catches her at the last moment but the wolflunges toward them, flecks of saliva and blood dripping from its mouth.
“Go. Run. Run!”
Grayson hauls me to his side and shatters the ice inside me.
Finally, something useful. Flight. He knows his strength won’t be a match against these things. And I’m no match for anything. Or anyone.
Chapter
Three
We sprint to the left and the witches pause, keeping the wolf contained, before their yelps sound from the right, growing softer with every passing heartbeat.
Through limbs and thick trunks, I catch a flash of their fading light before they disappear. Swallowed.
We head in the other direction.
The diversion we might have hoped for fails when the remaining wolf takes off behind us, its claws crumbling for purchase in the soft earth.
Drawn by the scent of Grayson’s blood.
“Go, go!” Grayson pulls me faster and it feels like my legs spin in useless circles.
He catapults me ahead of him, terror carrying us through the underbrush.
I’m not fast enough to avoid the tangle of briars I stumble through. Thorns snag my jeans and sip blood from the lines they drag across my skin, taking their payment for our passing.
No paths are clear this deep in the wilderness. No exits miraculously appear to offer us safety from the wolf. And neither one of us is in shape to attack.
Grayson hasn’t changed yet and I can’t. We’re pitifully human, my throat constricting and my knees determined to give out.
If he’s losing blood, and the moon-mad wolf is at full strength, we’re done. My own wolf stays shackled by invisible chains.
Breath leaves me in a whoosh. Where the hell do we go from here?
The distant crash of RJ and Aimee’s flight disappears the longer we run. There’s nothing but the ragged sounds of breathing, the strangely thick panting from the wolf giving chase.
Faster, God, faster.
Yet nothing happens. I don’t slow but I also can’t summon an extra burst of speed to outrun this thing. It’s built for carnage.
The curse practically assures it.
It doesn’t understand what’s going out outside the remaining urge to tear and rip and devour.
These things have no sense left. They’re pure rage. They won’t stop until they catch whatever they’ve got in their mind.