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They’d never be able to keep up.
Adrenaline and power poured into my muscles. My beast wasn’t here yet, not fully, and there was no time to shift. But its strength fueled me, giving me greater speed. Branches tore at me like grasping claws when I whipped past them, and the smoke of the Voidborn twisted after me like vengeful snakes, hellbent on tearing me down, but still I ran.
I wouldn’t lose her. Even if she hated me for all those weeks when I’d tried to drive her away, even if she never understood that I’d only done that to save us both pain, I still would never let her die.
Never let these bastards drain her humanity and keep only her body alive.
My beast snarled with fury in my mind, thoroughly in agreement.
Onward, I ran as the minutes ticked past and the forest refused to yield up my princess. But with every glance I threw back at the creatures chasing me, there were fewer. At first, I thought they were circling wide, perhaps planning to cut me off from either side again, but no attack ever came.
But then their serpentine bodies started to grow thin. As often as they sped after me, they crashed into the trees and bushes too, scarring the bark and branches with ash. They looked like drunken sailors stumbling on dry land for the first time, and while some veered off to the north as if suddenly trying to flee in that direction, others continued their erratic path after me.
And they were burning.
Alarmed, I slowed in spite of myself. Only one of the Voidborn remained now, twisting and thrashing far behind me as if it was fighting to push through mud rather than air. Tendrils of smoke were peeling away from its body like the creature was being shredded as it flew. The black wisps evaporated in the bright light of the morning when they left the creature’s body.
Still, the Voidborn tried to rush at me, flashing its metallic teeth in a snarl. Amid the smoke, eyes glowed a pus-like shade of yellow and glared at me with so much hate, it was like the creature despised my very existence.
Which was probably the case. But before it came within a dozen feet of me, it could last no longer. With a thin, screeching sound, the Voidborn faded away into nothing.
A breath escaped me. So… sunlight killed them. Or this world did, considering the witches claimed none of those creatures could survive outside their endless void anyway.
Good.
But my princess was still out here somewhere, and while I knew there was a chance she’d also fled to the north and that was the reason the Voidborn sought to go that way, I refused to entertain the possibility Byron’s spell to protect her against the sun had failed when the Voidborn touched her.
No, she would be alive. Mad, perhaps, but alive.
I’d shred the void itself if she was otherwise.
But where the hell was she?
Swiftly, I scanned the forest, using my magic to check on my friends. They were miles behind where I stood. Still alive and coming this way, yes, but at the speed of men, not monsters.
They’d never have to know about me.
I yanked my coat and sweater off and then removed my boots. Both went into the bag the Jeweled Coven had given me, stuffed down among the sharpening stones for my weapons and all the other supplies they’d provided.
And then I let the shift tear through my body.
At high speed, my bones twisted and my skin did too. My joints cracked, my knees bending backwards in brief, sharp points of pain, giving me the ability to run on four legs as well as two if I needed it. Fur erupted over my body, and my vision blurred for only a heartbeat as my skull lengthened and changed, shifting into that of a wolf but with sunken eyes and more bone than fur on my face. Claws came from my newly massive hands, long enough to skewer a man clean through, and more curved out from the elongated paws my feet had become. Gnarled antlers twisted up from my skull, and my tail shoved past the carefully concealed flap I’d stitched into these pants while the waistband stretched to accommodate my other form. Likewise, the straps of my weapons tightened across my chest, but I’d crafted my equipment well. They didn’t snap or rip.
My gaze swept across the forest while hot poison dripped from my fangs, making the ground steam. To my prey, the venom would be like acid. To my mate, it would be something else entirely.
I had only to find her first.
Sniffing the air, I growled. In my ordinary form, my senses were heightened above any other Erenlian’s, but they didn’t hold a candle to this. In an instant, a flood of new information reached me, painting a rich tapestry across my mind of the forest and the earth and the directions in which all the creatures upon it had gone.
But I only cared about one.
A hint of sweet strawberries and tangy blood ghosted across the breeze, as faint as the first blush of sunrise and then gone.
The princess.
I took off. Small creatures scattered, fleeing as they detected my scent on the wind. Deer leapt into a panicked run and birds took to the sky, but they couldn’t move fast enough to escape me, had I cared to catch them. I was a monster in this form. Truly, I was a monster even when I hid in my Erenlian shape pretending to be a man. When I looked like that, I was simply better at making others believe I was not a wild animal inside. But my beast was another matter entirely.
The mere sight of me in this form had prompted everyone from strangers to my own mother to try to kill me just for existing.
