“I’m slowing you down. You should—”
“Don’t,” Harper snapped. “I don’t want to hear it. We’re both getting out of here, even if I have to drag you the entire way. So stop arguing.”
Evie opened her mouth again. But she didn’t protest further. For the next hundred feet, the only noises she made were pained groans whenever she had to put weight on her foot.
“You know, I don’t know if I mentioned this,” Evie said. “But your girlfriend is kind of badass.”
Harper’s bottom lip trembled. “Yeah. She’s pretty great, huh?”
“She really is.” Evie dug her fingers into Harper’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for not seeing it sooner. For not giving her a chance.”
“I get it. It wasn’t like you could help it.”
“I could, actually. But I was terrified of her, Harper. Of her hurting you. After being without you for so long, I was so scared of losing you again that I saw signs of it everywhere.”
She took a deep breath. “I asked Natalya to look into her. To find out just how much awful stuff Maya had done, because then my fear would feel justified. But she couldn’t find anything. Nothing Maya did on purpose, at least. And despite all the evidence, I just refused to listen. It was easier to be scared of her than accept that some vampires might actually be decent.”
“Yeah, well…” Harper swiped at her eyes, clearing her blurring vision. “Maya is in a category of her own there. She’s annoyingly decent.”
“She’s more than decent,” Evie whispered. “She knows. What it’s like to be scared all the time. Not many people do.”
Not too long ago, Harper would have placed herself far away from that category. Being unsafe had been her normal, so she couldn’t afford to feel scared.
Usually, it didn’t hit until afterwards. Until whatever trial she’d been through was contrasted by safety. She didn’t realize how messed up her normal had been until she experienced what peace,truepeace, felt like.
A few weeks ago, she would have seen this situation as hopeless. Accepted Maya as lost and used that knowledge to close her heart before it could break. But she couldn’t do that now. She couldn’t even pretend not to hope that this wouldn’t have the terrible end she was always readying herself for.
“She’s sogood, Evie,” Harper said, voice unsteady. “How the hell am I supposed to handle that?”
Evie smiled. “You’ll figure it out. It just takes some practice.”
Branches snapped behind them. A shout followed, cut short by a brief scream. Voices filled the night, too distant to make out what they were saying.
Evie looked over her shoulder while Harper refused to do so. That scream wasn’t Maya’s. But that wasn’t as comforting a thought as it should be, because it meant the people following them were close enough to be heard.
Miles of forest lay ahead. Too far, both to run and especially to stagger. Even in the gray morning light, the dense forest was shrouded in darkness.
Footsteps rushed through the snow. Getting closer, and accompanied by snarling breaths.
A young man with a dark buzz cut broke through the trees. Tall and wild-eyed, with irises showing a yellowish tint. His clothes were covered in dried blood, and his face was twisted with rage. But before he could take even a single step more towards them, a shadow burst out of the dark. Maya stumbled into view, positioning herself between them and the lycanthrope. She held up her knife—the blade stained crimson.
She was barely standing. Swaying in place, limbs trembling. She was covered in wounds, the most prominent being four gory claw marks on her waist.
Despite that, the man still stepped back. He stayed at a distance even as another person appeared between the trees. A woman with graying hair and bloody teeth. A dozen more joined them, forming a circle around their group.
Maya glared at them, eyes hard and dangerous. The stare of a predator. But as the seconds ticked by, it became obvious that the predator in question was cornered. That she had no strength left to strike.
She reached her hand back, joining her fingers with Harper’s, but didn’t turn. She kept staring at the gathered wolves, tensing when the young man bared gleaming fangs. And took a step closer.
Smoke drifted in, clinging to the ground like morning mist. It curled through the trees, and the surrounding wolves stilled as it swept around their feet. Taking on a tint of violet.
A streak of black and bright scarlet seared through the forest. It whirled around them in a frenzy, a flurry of snow and steam following it, and in the next moment, half the lycanthropes dropped to the ground, bodies limp and necks snapped, including the man with the buzz cut.
The ones left standing yelled out. A few tensed, others leaped back, but all of them stared at the scarlet-eyed fiend that had just appeared in front of them.
Natalya looked like fury personified. Her golden-brown skin was mottled with purple scales, and her black dress was torn to shreds from the thighs down. Her nails had extended into horrid claws, and heat blazed off her so harshly it melted the surrounding snow.
Terror gripped Harper’s chest. An emotion so heightened it seemed manufactured, but that didn’t make it any less devastating. It infected the air like a toxin, and she ducked behind Maya, clutching her hand so hard her arm shook. Even Maya took a startled step back, while the remaining lycanthropes took off running, slipping in the snow as they fled.
