Hold the gun with both hands, her grandma would tell her. I know they do it differently in the dramas, but they’re idiots. Line up your target using the front and back sights. Don’t pull the trigger—squeeze it. It will fire when it’s ready.
The thaumaturge in her sight line stumbled back, a dark spot appearing on her red coat.
Click. Click.
Scarlet reached for her back pocket.
Empty.
She cursed. Shoving the gun into her waistband, she spun around, searching the ground for another weapon. Having been so focused on targeting her enemies, she was surprised to find herself in a sea of bodies and blood.
A drop of sweat slid down her temple.
How many had they lost? It seemed like the fighting had just started. How were there so many already dead? Dismay filled her lungs.
This was a battlefield. A massacre. And she was caught in the middle of it.
She released a shaky breath, wishing she could release her terror along with it. Her grand-mère’s voice had disappeared as soon as she’d put away the gun. Now there was only the sound of killing. Screams and war cries. The stench of blood.
Spotting an axe, she bent to pick it up, and didn’t realize until she found resistance that the blade was buried in a body. Grimacing, she shut her eyes, gritted her teeth, and pulled it free. She didn’t check to see who the body belonged to.
She was exhausted in every way, exhausted halfway to delirium. Her attention fell on a middle-aged woman who at first glance reminded her of Maha, but older. The woman was trembling from shock and her arm was cut and torn—by teeth, Scarlet guessed—and she was using her good hand to drag an injured man to safety.
Scarlet stumbled forward, gripping the axe handle. She should help her.
She went to drop the axe, but then her fingers twitched, which was her first warning. Eyes widening, she looked down at her hand. Her knuckles whitened on the axe handle, gripping it tighter. A shudder ripped through her body.
Someone else had control of her hands.
But they hadn’t thought to take her tongue, at least.
“Get away from me!” she screamed, to no one in particular. To anyone close enough to hear. “Run!”
The woman paused and looked up. There wasn’t enough time. Scarlet’s disjointed legs stumbled toward her and she took the axe in both hands and raised it overhead, her muscles flexing under its weight. “Run!” she yelled again, panic clawing at her throat, her mind overcome with the horrible reality of being under a thaumaturge’s control.
Comprehension filled the woman’s face and she scrambled backward. She turned to run, but tripped.
Scarlet screamed in anguish. The woman threw her hands up to protect herself. Scarlet slammed her eyes shut, pushing out tears she hadn’t known were there, and her arms swung the axe toward the woman’s stomach.
The axe came to a jarring stop, halting mid-swing.
Gasping around her own heartbeat, Scarlet dared to look up.
A form, massive and dark and covered in blood, towered over her. Scarlet whimpered. In relief, in gratitude, in a thousand feelings that didn’t come with words. “Wolf.”
His eyes were as vibrant green as ever, despite being more sunken than before—a result of his protruding nose and jaw.
Scarlet’s arm tried to pull the axe away, but he tore it from her grip.
Her mindless fingers changed tactics, scrabbling for a weakness, though there weren’t many. Her thumbs dove for his eye sockets.
Wolf caught her easily, still gripping the axe while his arms came around to smother Scarlet, pinning her arms to her sides. She screamed with frustration, and she wasn’t sure if it was her own frustration or that of a thaumaturge screaming through her. Her legs jostled and kicked and stamped, her body writhing against Wolf’s iron grip. He was immovable and merciless, bending his body around her like a cocoon.
The thaumaturge gave up, moving on to control an easier victim. Scarlet felt the release like a rubber band snapping inside her limbs. She shivered, melting into Wolf’s embrace with a sob.
“Oh stars, oh stars,” she cried, burying her face in his chest. “I almost—I would have—”
“You didn’t.”
His voice a little rougher, but still his.
Planting her hands on his chest, Scarlet pushed herself away and peered up at him. Her breaths were still rattling inside her lungs, the sounds of battle were still echoing in her ears, but she hadn’t felt less afraid in days. She reached up, hesitant at first, and brushed her fingers over the prominent new cheekbones, along the unfamiliar ridge of his brow. Wolf grimaced. It was the same face he’d made when she’d first discovered his fangs.
She found the scar on his left eyebrow, and the scar on his mouth, and they were right where she remembered them on the night she’d kissed him aboard the train heading to Paris.
“It is still you, isn’t it? They haven’t … changed you?”
She saw his jaw working. “Yes,” he choked. Then, “I don’t know. I think so.” His face crumpled, as if he might start crying, but he didn’t. “Scarlet. I am so sick of the taste of blood.”
She dragged the pad of her thumb along his lower lip, until it collided with one of the sharp canine teeth. “That’s good,” she said. “We don’t serve a whole lot of blood on the farm, so we were going to have to work on your diet, anyway.” Noting a smear of dried blood on his cheek, she tried to scrub it away, but quickly gave up. “Have you seen Cinder? We should find—”
“Scarlet.” His voice trembled with desperation and fear. “They did change me. I’m dangerous now. I’m—”
“Oh, please. We don’t have time for this.” Digging her hands into his hair—the same soft, wild, unkempt hair—she pulled him toward her. She wasn’t quite sure what a kiss would be like, and it was different and awkward in that hasty stolen moment, but she was confident they could perfect it later. “You have always been dangerous. But you’re my alpha and I’m yours and that’s not going to change because they gave you a new jawline. Now come on. We should—”
Behind Wolf, a soldier let out a cry of pain and crumpled to the ground, bleeding from a dozen different wounds. Wolf pulled Scarlet back, shielding her. There was blood coating his side, and she remembered that Iko had shot him, but he hardly seemed to notice the wound.
She looked again, scouring the weapons, the limbs, the bodies.
Less chaos than before. The battle was beginning to dwindle.
There were not so many people left to fight and still she could see the thaumaturges gathered in the distance. Some had fallen, certainly, but their numbers were holding. It was too easy for them to take control of the civilians, and with the wolf soldiers keeping one another occupied …
Was it possible they were losing?
A controlled civilian came running at her, a spear held over his head. Wolf swiped him away and snapped the spear in half before Scarlet could react. Turning, he growled, and yanked Scarlet to one side moments before a knife slashed through the empty air. With a single throw of Wolf’s fist, the unsuspecting man fell unconscious. Though he was still holding the axe, Wolf didn’t raise it. After all, these were their allies, even if they had become weapons for the enemy.
The more that fell, the easier it would be for the thaumaturges to take control …