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The bolt had penetrated the heavy leather he was wearing but looked like it hadn’t gone too deep. Kaylin yanked the arrow out, tossing it to the ground, and dashed over the boundary line. The Shadow Hunter hadn’t been prepared for him to go on the offensive and went down, Kaylin atop him in the snow, a flurry of fists flying.
I turned my attention back to the goblin. If I let this thing get away, he’d be back, with reinforcements. I flipped the blade on my switchblade and paused. Killing creatures—even our enemies—was still new and did not come easy to me. I sucked in a deep breath.
You can do it. Steady. Aim for the forehead. Goblins are vulnerable in the third eye area. Ulean flurried around me, trying to keep the snow from blinding my vision.
With a surge in the pit of my stomach, I brought the blade down, wincing as it slid through the goblin’s head. New Forest had become a town of kill or be killed. We no longer had the luxury of allowing our enemies to live in peace.
I drove the blade in to the hilt. The goblin screeched, loud and jagged through the twilight, and then fell limp as a fountain of blood stained the snow red, diluting into petal pink. The scent of the creature lingered, joined by that of blood. I withdrew my blade, yanking when it resisted.
Another shout. I looked up to realize that—in my fight—I’d also passed the boundary line and the Shadow Hunter was on the run, aiming directly for me. I froze, but he merely shoved me aside and fell to the side of the goblin’s body, his face pressed against the creature’s wound.
As I backed away, horrified, he lapped at the blood, and then began to transform, his mouth unhinging like that of a snake as he shifted into a doglike monster, his jaws lined with spiny teeth. With ravenous fury, he bit off the head, chewing it, spattering bits of brain matter every which way.
Kaylin brushed his fingers to his lips and slowly edged up on the Shadow Hunter. He brought out a short dagger, serrated and coated in a magical oil. As he plunged the knife into the side of the Vampiric Fae, aiming for the heart, the oil encouraged the blood to flow and the crimson liquid stained the snow still further.
The Shadow Hunter turned, but I was quicker, stabbing his haunch with my blade and dragging it through his tough hide. Then Kaylin and I lightly danced backward, out of reach of those deadly teeth.
A voice echoed from behind us and I turned to see my cousin Rhiannon, panting as she stretched out her hands, a small red charm in the palm of her right. She whispered, just loud enough for us to hear, “Flame to flame, bolt to bolt, fire to fire, jolt to jolt. Lightning, let me be thy rod.”
All hell broke loose as a bolt of snow lightning came forking out of the gathering clouds, ripping to the ground to shatter the Shadow Hunter into a thousand pieces, as if he were a glass dish smashed on concrete.
As soon as the spell sang out of her body, Rhiannon collapsed and Kaylin raced over to catch her. I stared at the remains of the Shadow Hunter and the goblin. Not much left. Nothing to take home with us, except two more notches on our belt, and the hope that we’d be able to sleep soundly, knowing there was one less member of Myst’s court in the world. One less toady of hers to slip onto our land.
Kaylin shivered. He was bleeding through the rent in his jacket from the arrow. At that moment, I noticed a trickle running down my own shoulder. I glanced down. A puncture wound had penetrated my jacket. I slipped it off to see blood saturating my top. The goblin must have stabbed me with its claw. I hadn’t even noticed.
“We’re growing numb to our pain,” I said as we turned away from the carnage we’d just inflicted.
“We have to,” Kaylin said. “We have to learn to weather the battles because there will be far more to come before things get back to normal. If there even is such a thing as ‘normal’ anymore.”
I nodded and looked at Rhiannon. “You saved the day.” The thank you was implied.
She slipped her arm around my waist and leaned down to kiss my forehead. “I just got home and saw the commotion from the car. Leo’s still in town and I don’t know where Chatter is.”
“In the basement, working with the charms.”
“Ah. Good. We’ll need them.”
“I guess we’d better get back on our land, before anything else comes out of the woods. We need to tend to our wounds and make sure they don’t get infected.” I wearily turned back to the house.
As we crossed the demarcation line that magically divided the Golden Wood from the Veil House, I couldn’t help but shudder. Like it or not, we were pawns in a war between two powerful enemies—Geoffrey and Myst—and we were doing our best just to stay alive.
Chapter 2
“Cicely? Are you ready? It’s time.” Leo’s voice echoed up the stairs. My cousin’s fiancé, and a day-runner for the vampires, he’d gotten home shortly after our encounter with the goblin.
After a long shower to wash away my aches and pains, I’d dressed in a cobalt sweater and black jeans, making sure I was neat and tidy. Geoffrey and Regina owned my services—quite literally—and they demanded that their employees appear before them nicely dressed.
My wolf growled as I ran my hand over the tattoo of the beautiful silverish beast that spread across my body, over my stomach.
“Sshh . . . ” I whispered. “Hush. I know, I know you’re out there hurting, but I can’t do anything about it right now.”
The wolf growled again and I pressed my lips tight, my heart sore. The memory of Grieve’s face, of his hands on my body, his needle-sharp teeth nipping at my skin, swept over me and I dashed my hand across my eyes, careful not to mar the mascara and liner I’d put on. Grieve was lost to the enemy. Myst had claimed him for her own. I was determined to win him back, but in the depths of my heart I was afraid that none of us would come out of this alive.
“Cicely! Get a move on!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” I hurried into my favorite boots—a pair of Icon Bombshells—and slung my purse over my shoulder. Polishing a smudge off my left boot, I decided that I was as good as I was going to get, especially after a tussle with a goblin and a Shadow Hunter.
