Silver saw me and began to move forward, the earth seeming to shudder with every step. Its paws were bigger than my head, and given those claws, it wouldn’t need an aspen stake to do plenty of damage.
If it kills me while we’re arguing, I told the monster, we both die. Step back.
I put my own magic behind the demand, and all the glamour I could muster. After a moment, the pain receded, and my mind became gloriously clear. But I knew the reprieve was temporary. I’d angered it, and while I won the battle, I had a sinking feeling that I wouldn’t win the next one. And possibly not the war.
Georgia was right. It was fighting me for control. And I was losing ground. But there wasn’t time to dwell on that now. The other war still raged, and I was one of the soldiers.
I pulled my dagger out again, worked to clear my mind of all but the blade and the enemy. I was vampire. I was predator. I had skills and power of my own. And I would use them.
Twenty feet away, Silver roared again, blood and saliva dripping from its fangs. There were cuts along its torso, tufts of hair and skin hanging from its legs where the wolves had gotten purchase with fang and claw.
And it looked pissed.
“Oh good,” I said merrily, and thought of the lessons I’d learned in France, in the humid basement where I’d learn to fall and rise a thousand times. And where I’d learned to make the dance mine, not to let my attacker lead.
I had one skill I’d bet it couldn’t master.
I sucked in a breath, moved my weight to the balls of my feet, and pushed off. I ran toward it, arms and legs pumping, then pushed up, soaring into the air, dagger extended. I landed on the animal’s torso, thrust the blade into its shoulder. Its fur was crusted, and the smell was astoundingly bad—animal and dirt and a sourness that seemed to come from the magic as much as the body.
But it felt pain. It screamed, reared back. I grabbed handfuls of fur, but it twisted, and I flew, hitting the ground with a thud I could feel in every bone—and slamming my head against a furrow of brick-hard dirt.
There was a yip I recognized as Connor’s, and I glanced up, found him staring at me in concern. “I’m fine,” I called out, blinking until my vision cleared.
I looked up again, watched the beast pull out the dagger, the blade sliding wetly through muscle and flesh, and howl at the pain. It dropped the blade and turned, met my gaze.
And then it started running.
The movement was awkward—a wolf balancing on two legs attempting to imitate a human’s running form. It was trying to move like a human, I realized. Or more accurately, like a shifter in human form.
“That is some very bad magic,” I said, crawling to my feet, trying to keep the world from spinning around me.
It reached me, stretched out its awkward limbs, and swiped out. I crawled beneath its legs, kept moving toward the dagger. I heard it loping behind me, the impact of its footfalls giving me a good indication of its location. I spotted the dagger three feet away. Then two.
It swiped again, the tips of its claws burning hot across my back, and sending me across the ground. I rolled to a stop, climbed to my feet, saw it look down at the dagger as if puzzling out what to do.
It had known enough—was human enough—to pull the dagger from its shoulder. But it couldn’t quite remember how to wield it. Which was fine by me.
I scrambled to my feet, lunged for the beast again, sweeping the dagger up as I raked my nails across the dirt. I kept running, putting distance between us so I could turn and face it.
And did, brushing dirt and sweat and blood from my eyes.
I bared my fangs, hissed out an oath as the gashes in my back pulsed with pain. The beast turned again, blood seeping from its shoulder and leaving a dark stain down its torso. Baring its fangs in a kind of dare, it loped toward me again, the fury evident in its eyes.
This wasn’t just an animal fighting for territory. It was angry. Furiously angry. Because we’d interrupted it? Because we’d hurt it? Or because it just wanted to hurt, to kill?
I adjusted my fingers around the dagger’s handle, crouched just enough to keep my center of gravity low, and moved the weight on the balls of my feet. The beast reached me, swiped, and I spun to avoid the claws, slashed down across its calf as I turned. I’d hoped to sever a tendon, to put it on the ground, but its skin was tougher than I’d thought, and this time I hadn’t used my bodyweight.
I still sliced, and it still screamed, the sound high-pitched and frantic, and turned around, snatching the air to get me, to stop me. I dropped and rolled, then popped up again, slashed across the front of its other thigh. I ducked to avoid its claw, but it grazed my shoulder, sending me off-balance. I hit the dirt again, but managed to keep the dagger, rolled onto my back.
It loomed over me—firelight flickering across its face—and screamed again, its breath emitting a stench as bad as the rest of it. I changed my grip on the blade to prepare for an upward strike . . . when a human voice filled the air.
“Stop, you bastard!”
There was a mighty thud, and the beast fell to its side, revealing Carlie behind it, scratches across her face and collarbone, and a stick as thick as a baseball bat in her hands.
“Good shot,” I said, and began to climb to my feet.
Carlie smiled, dropped the stick. “Thank you! I was afraid it was about to—”
That was all she managed to say, because the beast was up again and, in the space of a heartbeat, caught her in its jaws and ran toward the woods.
The beast had Carlie.
The scream was stuck in my throat, and it took my brain a moment—too goddamn long—to process what had happened. Cold slicked down my back even in the fire’s enormous heat, and I stared into the woods.
The beast had Carlie, I thought again, even as the monster insulted my fighting, my impotence. But I didn’t need the guilt. She’d been trying to save me when she’d been taken.
And hell if I was going to give her up.
* * *
* * *
I ran like I was chasing hell itself, instead of the opposite. The beast’s trail was, at least, easy to follow. It cut a swath through the trees, left a trail of dark blood and broken magic that was impossible to ignore.
I pushed harder, ran faster. My lacerations were screaming, my head still spinning from the knock I’d taken. But pain meant nothing. Not compared to her life.
I had to get Carlie back. There was no other option.
I could hear the beast ahead of me, breath stuttering and footfalls growing slower. It was wounded, too, and carrying a human. A small human, but still.
That I couldn’t hear her screaming, didn’t hear a cry for help, planted fear deep in my belly. Was some of the spilled blood hers? Had the beast’s teeth pierced something vital? Would I be too late?