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As she sat back on her heels, Etan touched her shoulder again, grounding her.
“Saint will be fine. He was telling the truth, you know—about how he felt you. That saved us. He was hurt too bad to shift, drained down to the bone. He kept snapping at me to leave him. Hannah and me, we weren’t going to do it. We were pinned down. Fuck me if I know how it happened, but we were trapped. Then there was this... pulse. Even I felt it, but Saint went all night-glow for like two seconds and—I don’t know how, but... ”
A rustling in the trees ahead had him lapsing into silence.
“They’re trying to surround us,” Zee murmured, looking up and scanning the perimeter.
“Good luck with that.” The words came from behind her, delivered by Niko as he lowered himself from the trees.
Etan shot him a dark look and shook his head. “You and your freaky ass retractable claws.”
Niko didn’t so much as crack a smile as he hunkered down next to them, said freaky retractable claws still visible. Not all Therians could hold a hybrid form.
It was child’s play for a Prime, the strength and control required negligible. Niko’s claws, like a typical Therian wolf’s in a hybrid form, were long and hooked. But, like those in his mother’s feline Therian family, the claws could grow even longer and they were strong enough to support his body weight as he scaled trees.
“How many did you get?” Zee asked softly.
“Six. I let one more escape after taking his weapons—wanted him to spread the word.” Voice almost imperceptible, he directed his question toward Etan. “How many were you able to count?”
“I counted nineteen—and ten of them I couldn’t locate by scent. So there could be more hiding that we can’t pick up on. I only know they were there because I saw them with my own fucking eyes.” His mouth went tight as he looked from Saint up to the Prime. “You get me? I couldn’t scent them, Niko. Hannah didn’t seem to pick up on them either. Saint bitched about us leaving, said there were more men out there than we thought, but since when has a wolf’s nose ever lied?”
Niko frowned, his eyes scanning the area around them as if searching for a threat.
Zee put her hand on the ground and Etan tracked the movement with his eyes, nodding. “Yeah. That’s how Saint sensed it, too. Whatever they’ve figured out, it can fool a wolf’s nose, but nothing can trick the earth and the Fae... well, you’re connected to the earth.”
“Zee?” Niko’s voice was soft and low. “Can you feel them?”
She closed her eyes, already reaching out with those other instincts—the Fae in her, that part of her she barely understood. The Fae within her rose, stretching to fill her, almost like the way her wolf did just before a shift. Then, as the Fae magic engulfed her, leaving her so full of that wild magic she doubted she could hold any more, she sank it into the earth—her wolf took control there, instinctively guiding her before panic could take control.
“Zee.”
“Shhhh... ” She held up her free hand toward Niko, sinking deeper into the connection between her Fae self and the earth.
It reached and reached and reached.
“Zee, you’re glowing.”
Opening her eyes to see Niko crouching in front of her, she drew in a breath and looked down. Air trapped in her lungs as she caught sight of her hands. She had to force herself to breathe out, only noticing her lack of respirations when her chest started to ache.
She was glowing, her skin luminescent, as if the moonlight now lived within her and shone through.
“Whoa,” she breathed out. “Pretty... but... this will make it all too easy to find me.”
Niko traced his fingers across the back of her hand. She gasped at that light contact, her senses now unbelievably acute.
“You can tone it down,” Etan said. “I’m not sure how, but it’s a control thing. Try to will it... the same way you did when you were first learning to control your shift.”
She did so, falling back on exercises Therians started learning as toddlers.
It took several sputtering attempts before she managed to make it fade away, several more before she could clear her mind of the magic-thick air well enough to think, or speak.
Once she could think past the rush of unfamiliar power, using her wolf to help steady her, she focused on what her Fae magic had sensed through the connection to the earth.
“There are fifteen left. Five are wounded and two of those are too badly hurt to fight—one is close to dead, blood loss. I could feel the lingering echo of the ones you killed.” She sucked in oxygen, desperately needing it to combat the spinning in her head. Then, as she tightened her fist in the loose dirt, she listened to the whispers of the earth. “Wow... that’s a rush. Okay, they’re coming in on the south and east, trying to circle to the north. The dead bodies... Niko? Yeah... two pushing to the north just found a couple of corpses. They’re... wary.”
Something else whispered through the earth to her. She opened her hand, then closed into a fist once more as those whispers rose to a thrumming crescendo. “Not wary,” she whispered. “No. They’re scared. All of them. They’re scared of you. They’re all willing to die... ”
The stream of knowledge dried up.
“Why?” Etan asked.
“I don’t know. The earth is only sensing the fear. Shit—they’re moving again. We have to take them out now before they close in. Now.” She shot to her feet, damp earth falling from her fingers as she turned to Niko. “We need to get to them, Niko.”
Niko’s expression went taut. “There are still thirteen armed humans out there, baby. And if they know what Saint is... ”
“No.” Zee shook her head, the gold of a wolf swirling with her intense green eyes. “Don’t you dare ask me to stay behind.”
