“Do you hear something?” Colt asks.
Terror crashes as the wind changes and brings with it the unmistakable scent of wolves, cursed to decay while they’re alive.
I jump toward the gate but my father’s shadow is a memory on the other side. “The fence. We need to check the fence.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Lacey, confused, stiffens at my side.
Grayson is already in motion and I halfway wonder if he senses the same thing I do. Like there’s a link between us and the other moon-mad wolves now that we’re past a certain threshold.
He cuts in front of me, his longer strides carrying him faster, his large body blocking me on the off chance we’re right and the attack has come out of nowhere.
What are the odds?
We’ve made it twenty feet before the shredded pieces of metal fence glint in moonlight, like broken bone sticking out of flesh. The fence has been torn into pieces which leave a big enough space for a truck to drive through.
Pieces of flesh and fur cling to the sharp pieces of metal, warped to allow entry.
“No.”
Holly. I break into a run, my head spinning and the voices in my head reaching a fever pitch.Holly, Holly, Holly.
“Mandi. Wait!” Lacey calls my name.
“Go tell the witches we need that cure ASAP!” The yell burns my throat. “Go! We’ve got this.”
It’s the only way we’re going to make it out of this. The peaceful night shatters with the edge of panic I can’t shake.
The vampires are out of my mind the second my sneakers touch down on familiar pavement.
We absolutelydo nothave this but the sooner we get the cure, the sooner we can end this fight.
The moon-mad wolves aren’t done with the Ironwood pack yet. I’d run during the last attack.
No way in hell am I going to run from this one. Not when the guards were called away from the gate for my talk with Dad. Not when the pack is unprepared for whatever is stirring.
The streets are eerie and quiet. Where did everyone go?
“You should go with them,” I tell Grayson. “It’s safer for you.”
“I’m not leaving.”
He’s angry with me, angry I’d suggest he cut and run. I fall for him harder, my heart stumbling over itself, especially after the way my people treated him.
Grayson would still rather stick it out with me and save them than save himself.
That is the kind of man I want to be with.
I stop in the middle of the street, dragging my nails through my hair and using the bit of pain to clear my head.Think. Where would everyone go at this time of night? There are no ceremonies, no holidays or celebrations.
But I’d rejected Jrue.
That might, under stressful circumstances, warrant a tribunal, especially with the news of me being moonlocked. Dad and the rest of the elders would need to come up with a different course of action for the pack and figure out what to do about Jrue, what to do about me.
“The meeting hall,” I burst out.
Grayson blinks. “You think everyone is there?”
It’s impossible to track the moon-mad wolves. The further we go into the community, the more their reek permeates the air.