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Normal people might call or text to announce their plans. Fucking infuriating. Terrifying. Tisiphone waltzing right into her normal life. Out of context and completely by surprise. In front of colleagues. Vann.

A warning? What, that she was watching? That she wasn’t some distant entity in the forest? An almost sisterly conversation—until Tisiphone had promised to come soon.

The shy coastal sun refused to come out from behind the clouds. Already the middle of July, and the beach was empty. The wind wild. The tide merciless.

Eryn’s feet pounded over the compacted sand, her footprints washing away with the tongue of each wave. A few walkers and runners were out today, but the beach was blissfully quiet.

A deeper slice of a claw, a few harder kicks to the right areas, and she would be dead. That had been the point, that she feel her mortality so acutely. That she had wished for death.

Wet sand squelched under her running shoes. Skin burning, muscles on fire, Eryn ran until her face was drenched with rain and sweat.

With the lack of sunshine she saw working night shifts? Should have been a vampire.

Ha. If only it had been a vampire to take her family, instead of the fury that had cursed her. The movies had nothing on reality. Doomed for death, but not the glamorous kind.

Reality fucking sucked. The movies had it all wrong, making up sexy sharp-toothed, drool-worthy icons who seduced their prey. Instead of a sexy vampire obsessing over her, she had a devious fury haunting her. Not that Tisiphone wasn’t sexy, but visual appeal withered when one’s freedom, humanity, and very soul were at risk.

Lexi had been obsessed with vampire legends as a kid. Sometimes Eryn wondered if Lexi had become a forensic pathologist out of love for vampire lore, and tracking the fury’s activity was a side benefit.

Oh well. Fiction was always better than reality.

Lungs burning as she neared the ten-mile mark, Eryn eye-marked a target. Saturated driftwood with two branches forming a perfect goalpost. Kicking up speed, she sprinted full-out toward it. Taller than it looked.

The beach was quiet enough.

Closer, closer.

Now.

She hurdled between the dead, upright branches and easily cleared the log.

Damn, that second dose was going to be amazing.

If she survived it.

Sweat and ocean air mingled over her skin, salty and wet with eau-of-sand emanating from her. Like showering in IV fluid.

Ahead, she saw another runner, tall and agile. Like a leaf on the wind—a fast leaf in a hurricane—he whipped down the trail from the hills above, sprinting onto the beach. Holy shit, he was fast.

Eryn ran behind, picking up her pace to see if she could match the runner’s speed.

His sleek form, the controlled power in his hips, his shoulders. Vann.

Ha. Wow. Damn. Did he work private security for Olympic athletes?

Eryn kicked into high gear and sprinted full-out.

Her quads burned. Her lungs burned. Her throat burned.

Air pumped hard in and out of her lungs; her alveoli swelled. Arteries juiced to the max with O2. She pushed every ounce of fuel into the sprint.

At the sound of her feet pounding the wet sand, he glanced back and grinned. “Hey,” he said, and slowed so she could catch up.

While she set her hands on her hips, walking off the tachycardia before she passed out, he stopped flat and folded his arms over his chest.

“Hi.”

“Nice day,” he said, nodding up at the misty sky.