AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Where were those goddamned talons I’d managed to sprout this morning? If I could just shift into the scaled, fire-breathing animal I knew I had in me, I’d show this beast what real hurtingwas.
But the scrabbling inside me felt more desperate than determined. Every time I tried to reach for the power inside me, the wolf wrenched at my arm or gouged its claws into me again. I couldn’t focus on anything through the haze ofpain.
Shouts rang out. The wolf flinched. It took one last bite at my throat, but I managed to knock its muzzle to the side with my throbbing arm. The stink of its rasping breath flooded my nose as its fangs nicked my chin. Then it was springingaway.
A thunder of rushing paws echoed around me. A whole pack of wolves shot past me, snarling and snapping at the fleeinganimals.
My whole body was on fire—and not the enjoyable kind. I rolled onto my side, toward Kylie. My shredded shirt tugged at my wounds, tacky with blood. More streaked down the hand I reached toward my bestfriend.
Kylie was sprawled in the grass, her face turned away from me, her arm twisted at an unnatural angle behind her. Her pink pixie-cut was streaked withred.
My fault. I hadn’t protected her. I hadn’t even been able to protectmyself.
A few of the running bodies shifted back into human form around us. Nate’s warm hand pressed against my side. “Ren! Quick, we’ve got to stop thebleeding.”
Aaron pressed a folded shirt to my side. The sting expanded, and I shuddered. “You’ll be okay,” he said. “You’re already healing. Dragons heal fast.” But even his mild voice came outragged.
“Kylie,” I said. Marco dropped onto his knees beside me and clasped my hand to stop me from moving my arm any more than I already had. Four women had clustered around my friend. One scratched her own wrist with her teeth and dribbled blood over Kylie’s wounds. The others pressed bandages overthem.
“She’s alive,” one of them said, catching my gaze. “We’ll make sure she stays that way. No rogue will take a life on our watch. I’ll empty my own body of blood before I let thathappen.”
Alive. Kylie was alive. A small shiver of relief passed through me. Not enough to dislodge the knot of guilt in my stomach, but I finally let myself sag into thegrass.
Aaron was right. A splintering heat was crawling up to my skin from inside me now, knitting my flesh back together. At least that part of my shifter powers didn’t need me to coax it intoworking.
The sensation hurt almost as bad as getting the wounds in the first place. My eyelids drooped as exhaustion rolled through me withit.
“What did they do to her?” a voice said from over me. Was that West? I’d never heardhimsound sopained.
“Bit and scratched her up, but nothing too deep for her to heal on her own,” Aaron said. “They were clearly trying to do a lot worse. Did you catch any ofthem?”
“Not exactly.” West spat out the words. “A few of the others pounced on one of the coyotes, but they didn’t stop to ask questions. And he’s never going to be answering any now. The others took off too fast.Rogues.”
“They all looked like canine-kin,” Nateremarked.
“Theyaren’tmy kin,” West snapped. “No matter what they looklike.”
“Of course the rogue group would send canines for an attack here,” Aaron said. “They’d have been hoping you wouldn’t smell them approaching, since they’d blend in with the locals.” He smoothed his hand over my hair. I opened my eyes, and he gave me a tight smile. “Good thing we started on the self-defenselessons.”
“I couldn’t get it off me,” I murmured, my throat hoarse. “I tried—I couldn’t stopthem—”
“Hey,” Nate said. “You stopped them fromkillingyou. That’s all thatmatters.”
Marco straightened up. “So they already know we’re here. That’s a pity. We’ll have to assume they’re following our movements from nowon.”
Were we going to move? I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want the guys to go. If theyleft...
My thoughts jumbled in my head. I ached too much to set them straight. I tipped my head, and my gaze caught on the crystalslab.
It was sitting in the grass, leaning against a rock where it had fallen. A splash of blood had splattered across its clear face. Splattered and seeped darker into the lines and dots of the etching. I stared at it, my vision doubling and steadying again as my body throbbed. A memory rippled past myeyes.
Mom, perched at our dining room table. Pouring over a map on her tablet. I’d glanced over her shoulder as I’d walked by, and she’d tapped the appclosed.
What are you looking at?I’d asked her, and she’d said,Nothing for you to worry about.And two days later, she’dvanished.
The lines and speckles—I hadn’t seen their exact pattern before, but I’d seen patterns like them. They were laid out like a map’s roads, rivers, and towns. They’d looked so random before, but now, at that angle, with them drawn so starkly in my blood, the full picture swam intofocus.
Follow the crystal. The damned thing was literally amap.
