Page 25 of Nightshade

I continued to stalk toward them, trying to decide on a real course of action. There were four of them, I determined as I closed in, and frankly, while I was sure of myself against any one other creature, four was a stretch, especially witches. Magic users were unpredictable, and they might pull any number of spells out that I had no defense for. Most attacks, I could heal from and fight through. But what if they just turned me into a slug and squished me?

Was that even something they were capable of?

This was the real problem with the witches. I had no idea what they were actually capable of doing to me. I only knew what I could do, and given the right motivation and necessity, I could kill four creatures. If they were human, easily. If they were wolves, with difficulty. Witches? No idea.

The problem was the inverse relationship between how dangerous a creature was and how likely I was to need to hurt them. I’d never met a human who I’d needed to hurt for any reason. Witches? I didn’t think I’d met a good one yet.

A click sounded off to one side of me, and I turned to find Evie standing there, her eyes alight with something that looked like excitement. That was . . . odd. Not that fourteen-year-olds were often known for their even temperaments and common sense, but she didn’t look the least bit nervous. As though in answer to my internal question, she lifted her chin in another direction, so I turned to look.

Aleks.

Of course. I’d been hoping he’d get my message and come, and naturally Evie felt entirely confident in his presence. I couldn’t hear or smell anyone else, but . . . well, honestly, Evie and Aleks made it four versus three, and I didn’t mind those odds so much. I thought we might be able to manage that, even if I didn’t want Evie involved in fighting. The truth was that Evie had been fighting for her right to live almost since birth, so it wouldn’t be new to her, having to actually use her claws to continue that fight. And for once, this was a fight for the whole pack, against outsiders. Not an internal fight where someone in the pack wanted to hurt Evie specifically, and we all had to defend her.

No, I imagined this felt much less personal, and more like communal pack defense to her. Like being part of something bigger. Something good and worthwhile.

Fearlessly, Aleks walked out of the woods right in front of the witches. One of the women screamed like he’d gutted her, and two of them took fight stances.

Well, I thought they were supposed to be fight stances. And maybe witches fought very differently than wolves, but the stances in question looked awkward to me. Like they had very little idea what they were doing, and even less idea how to handle a werewolf.

Plus . . . they hadn’t known he was there? He had literally walked up in front of them, with nothing like an aggressive stance.

I slipped closer through the trees, listening to Evie circle the group, making obvious noises now and then, each of which seemed to make the witches more and more tense. They clearly believed they were surrounded by the pack, when it was one teenage girl deliberately stepping on branches and tossing stones. Evie was impressive, and it might have convinced me there were two people, but these witches? They were terrified.

They’d dropped all pretense of fighting and were huddled into a knot of humanity, too close to each other to be able to fight anything at all. It was like they wanted to make themselves an easier target and get in each other’s way if a fight did break out.

Or maybe like they’d never been in a fight in their lives.

They did look young, I realized as I approached. All of them younger than Aleks and me, who were only twenty-six and twenty-seven.

“What are you doing in the Wildwood, little witches?” Aleks asked, exaggerating his Russian accent, and I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing. It was like he was trying to come across as a storybook villain. In a minute, maybe he’d be the one asking them what was in their goodie basket.

“We’re”—one of the women pressed herself in front of the others, slightly protective, even as her voice shook— “we’re looking for a monster. A . . . vampire. A feral vampire loose in the woods. We’re just trying to help you. Keep you from getting killed.”

“Yeah,” one of the other women, the ones huddled behind her like cowards, said with a sneer. “We’re just trying to protect people, not that you’d understand that.”

Aleks lifted a brow and didn’t respond.

My instinct was to interject, to point out that the witches were the ones who didn’t give a damn about anything but themselves, but I bit my tongue. Instead, the silence settled over the area like a swarm of insects, heavy and biting.

“Vampires are dangerous,” the woman in front finally said, defensive now. “We really are trying to keep anyone from being bitten. He’s half-starved and mad, and he won’t hesitate to attack any of your people.”

My mind went back to Altair’s desperate and clumsy attack on me, and instead of thinking that maybe they were right to try to protect people, my temper snapped.

“And why is he half-starved?” I demanded. “No vampire would just let themself get that desperate for food, to the point that they couldn’t resist attacking anyone they came across.” I stalked forward, coming toward the group from the side and glaring at them, these monsters who’d held Altair prisoner for over a century, not feeding him and then blaming him for the result of that.

“Vampires are monsters,” the second woman insisted, and her voice was so petulant I almost expected her to stamp her foot like a toddler. “They eat people. What do you expect?”

“I expect that they can control themselves, otherwise humans would be aware of their existence, and not just think they were stories. If they were randomly attacking people on the streets, there would be no legends, only facts.” Bringing my arms up to cross over my chest, I glared at her specifically. “So again, why would this one be so hungry that he might attack people? Could it possibly be that you lot have deliberately starved a vampire and then set him loose on pack land?”

There was a low gasp from the woods, poor Evie probably horrified by the notion of vampires out for her blood.

“It’s a monster,” the witch said again, as though perhaps we’d simply missed it the first few times. “Our monster. It needs to be returned to captivity immediately.”

I recoiled, and so did Aleks, because how could we not?

“You can’t own a person,” I told her, the disgust evident in my voice. “And anyone who thinks otherwise is the real monster.”

The witches didn’t seem to have an answer for that, not even the nastiest of the lot.