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Even if I have to die to do it.
I angle the knife as best I can between our bodies and jab into Frost’s heavy warmth. The blade slices through the jacket, and Frost cries out, his weight vanishing. Flailing my arms, I toss off the jacket and hold out the knife.
The three of them surround me. Kian is still cupping his junk with one hand, looking a bit queasy, and Malix has a bruise blooming on his temple.
The angle and pressure were too awkward to actually stab Frost, but I managed to nick him through his sweatshirt. Only the slightest amount of blood blossoms on his gray hoodie, but the sight of it freezes me in place for a moment.
Frost was the one to tell me about how the shadows hurt. How he walks around day to day in excruciating pain because of the shadows burrowing inside him.
And I added to that pain.
With the blade of my knife, with the force of my hatred, I hurt him.
Is that really what I want?
As a confusing mix of emotions tighten my throat, a new sound fills the room.
Howls. From outside.
Other wolves in the village have awakened—and they clearly know something’s wrong.
Shit.
The three feral shifters exchange glances. My muscles tense, braced for them to leap on me again, to kill me before their pack mates can arrive and do the honors first. But then Malix takes a single step to the side, opening a path to the bedroom door.
I don’t hesitate or even question why he did it. I’m on my feet in a heartbeat, racing from the room with my heart in my throat. The knife falls from my bloody fingers, and I tear through the living area to the front door. Then I sail out into the snowy night, shifting before I even hit the ground.
So much for my new clothes and boots.
Snow stings my eyes, and my paws pound through a couple inches of white powder. The sharp air burns in my lungs, but I don’t stop and I don’t look back. Three on one isn’t great odds, but an entire village against one would leave me no chance at all. If this pack rips me apart and soaks the snow with my blood, I can’t fulfill my vow to save the world from the shadow realm.
Dark forms appear in my periphery, and fear makes me put on a burst of speed. The pack wolves pursue me like wraiths in the storm, visible one moment, invisible the next, stalking me through an endless curtain of white. I can’t see anything through the driving snow—no landmarks to tell me if I’m heading the right direction, no places to hide, just white nothingness that seems to stretch on forever.
This is Quinton’s pack’s land, and all the shifters chasing me have likely lived here their entire lives. I doubt even the worst blizzards of the winter stop this pack from getting out, hunting, and taking care of their business.
And that’s my downfall.
They know the terrain better than me.
They converge on me from the snowy landscape, dark forms made of gnashing teeth and fur. One large red wolf launches himself at me, his teeth tearing into my scruff, but I shake him off and dart away. A second wolf with long sharp incisors snatches at my legs. I yelp and stumble, falling to the coating of snow as blood arcs from the gash, vivid red and steaming.
I struggle as they subdue me, but it’s too late. My eyes are watering from the icy sting of running headlong into the snow, and my leg burns, still seeping blood. There are too many of them and only one of me.
A dark brown wolf steps over me, latching on to my neck and pinning me to the ground. Shift, he demands furiously.
He’ll kill me if I don’t, so I do.
The snow against my naked back cuts into my skin like a thousand knives. The wolf tightens his teeth on my now much smaller neck and holds me in place. A circle of wolves closes in around us, some of them shifting to human as I survey them with my heart in my throat.
To my left, the crowd parts, admitting a man with a bald head and a feral, furious face. He’s naked, clearly having left his house in wolf form like everyone else. Even though he’s shorter than any other human form watching me, he’s thick and muscular, and I have no doubt he could rip my head off my shoulders with one hand. He crouches beside me and my captor, his inky eyes sweeping down my naked body.
“Who are you?” he demands.
More movement over his shoulder draws my attention. Malix, Frost, and Kian appear through the whirling snow, walking through the crowd of watching wolves with ease. I realize the bystanders are moving away from them, giving them odd looks and keeping their distance from the feral shifters.
Strange.
The bald man slaps me across the face. “Answer me!”
I blink away the unbidden tears rising in my eyes from the slap, but I maintain a hard, unreadable expression.
“Did Felicity send you?” he snarls, raising his hand again.
Felicity. That name is oddly familiar, and it takes me a few seconds of rifling through memories of the past two weeks to remember where I’d heard it.
This must be Quinton, I think, sizing him up. The alpha. I’ve been told Felicity was his mate until she turned against him.
Quinton sneers at me. “You know that name, don’t you, you little bitch?”
He slaps me again, the crack of his palm meeting my face loud, even with the wind roaring around us. The force sends my head whipping sideways, and more tears to my eyes. I gasp and catch Malix’s gaze, but he simply stares at me, his expression as remote as the mountains.
Turning back to Quinton, I press my lips together and glare at him. Defiant. Silent.
