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I pushed harder, calling up every spare ounce of effort I could find, that same determination that had driven me through all-nighters in grad school and endless hours of ballet practice. It didn’t feel good, but that was irrelevant. You don’t stop until the job is done, my father was fond of saying.
Tanya wasn’t yet safe; my job wasn’t done.
We reached the stand of winter-bare trees, and the harpy banked, wings swatting the trees on the edge of the wood, black feathers ripped out by branches floating to the ground.
I helped Tanya sit down on a fallen tree, Connor now crying fitfully. Other shifters who’d taken shelter in the woods turned back into their human forms and looked out on the battle with horror.
I knelt down in front of Tanya, who tried to calm her son.
“What’s this about?” I asked, when her gaze met mine.
She shook her head, her eyes still wide with shock. “I don’t know. I don’t even—what are they?”
“Harpies, I think. Is this a fight with the Pack? Did the Pack piss someone off?” Perhaps by inviting vampires to his woods? I silently wondered, hoping this wasn’t because of us.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know. This is so horrible, Merit. So awful.”
The bare limbs above us shook as harpies circled overhead, looking for a place to dive into the undergrowth. I pulled the dagger from my boot and stood up again.
“You’re going back.”
I nodded. “The Pack still needs help, and Ethan’s still out there. I don’t quit until he’s safe.”
There was bravado in my voice—the kind of bluffing I actually could manage—and it masked the fear. My allies were engaged in battles of their own, and I had only a slim and slender dagger to take down a woman-bird with an attitude problem.
But Tanya smiled at me like I’d seen Gabriel smile before. Knowingly. Wisely. And with utter calm. “You can do this, Merit of House Cadogan. Go save your man.”
I nodded, somehow buoyed by the sentiment, and left Tanya and her subjects in the trees. Flipping the dagger nervously in my hand, I walked back to the tree line and peered into the darkness.
She dropped to the ground in front of me, torchlight flickering across her naked body.
She seemed, somehow, even larger on the ground. At least six feet tall, with a twenty-foot wingspan. Her eyes were solidly black, hair blowing wildly in the wind, revealing small br**sts and a web of battle scars across her abdomen.
She tucked her wings behind her and moved forward, knees bent, the motion bouncy and unnatural. Harpies clearly weren’t meant to run; they were meant to fly.
She opened her mouth and screamed. I winced at the aural assault and resorted to my standard defense mechanism. Sarcasm.
“You are not going to Hollywood with pitch like that,” I advised her.
Her dark eyes flicked back and forth like a bird’s, but it didn’t appear she actually understood what I’d said. Maybe she didn’t understand English. Or finely grained sarcasm.
Regardless, she understood battle. She attacked, vaulting forward, teeth bared.
For a moment, I was too transfixed to move. She looked like a creature from an ancient time, a warrior from an era when gods and goddesses reigned in gauzy robes and gold laurel crowns. If The Ride of the Valkyries had begun to play, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
I kicked, trying like I had before to get her off her feet. She avoided the shot by taking to the air, then gave back better than I had, kicking forward and hitting me square in the chest, sending me flying.
I hit the ground on my back, knocking the wind out of me. I clutched at the grass at my sides, gasping for air, as the ground rumbled beneath my feet.
“Up, Merit!” yelled Tanya behind me, and I reared back, then hopped to my feet, as if her words had been an order instead of a frightened suggestion. I was tiring, still healing and dizzy from my last round, adrenaline beginning to fade, and I was beginning to react on autopilot. Fortunately, I’d been trained to fight beyond fear, beyond exhaustion.
Standing again, I bounced on my feet. The harpy’s eyes narrowed and she moved forward again. I looked for a target, recalled how ineffective my dagger had been against the other harpy’s abdomen, and picked a new target.
If I couldn’t beat the human, I’d go for the bird.
I beckoned her forward, and she windmilled her claws as she moved toward me again, looking for purchase and a soft bit of flesh to tear. I swerved to the left, and she followed. Her legs moved awkwardly, and her wings provided just enough drag to make me faster than her. I dodged back to the right, and she moved back again, but slower this time . . . giving me just enough time to make my move.
Her wing brushed me as she sought to move again, and I grabbed the top of it, a long rib beneath a covering of slick and oily feathers, and stuck with my dagger.
She screamed in distress, reared back, and swung at me, but I leaped backward, flipping to avoid the shot. Her wing hung limply on one side, and I was struck with pity. I’d winged my enemy but hadn’t brought her down.
And she was pissed.
Faster than she’d moved before, she bent her knees and jumped forward. She was on me before I could move, heavy and awkward, her mouth wide and pointed teeth aimed for my face, apparently intent on taking a bite.
“Ethan will not like that,” I muttered, humor my last weapon against fear and exhaustion. I watched for the right moment and, when her head darted up to strike, pushed the dagger through her neck.
She arched back, screaming, hands at her throat, and pulled out the dagger, which hit the ground some feet away. I watched it roll, afraid she’d come back for a second round and I’d have no recourse, no protection. But blood and worse gushed from her wound, and she staggered and fell, shaking the earth beneath.
I wiped fresh traces of blood from my face, thinking, just as I’d promised Ethan, that I’d heal. The harpy, unfortunately, would have no such luck.
When I’d gotten to my feet again, grabbed up my dagger, and scrubbed off blood and dirt, I took a look at the rest of the battle. Harpies still circled the sky—a dozen maybe—but the attack was clearly on the wane. And it would leave death and destruction in its wake.
Some shifters fought; others lay on the ground, unmoving, the scents of untimely deaths moving across the field, thrown into the air by the flap of wings. Shifters could heal themselves, but only if they shifted, and they had to be awake and conscious to do that. For some of them, it was clearly too late.
So much death, I thought, staring blankly at the carnage, trying to process it. I’d fought battles before, and seen death. But rarely this much, and never all at once.
