CHAPTER 39
BLANCHETTE
The moon was barely visible through the tangled branches overhead.
The owl never disappeared into the night.
Instead, it waited for me, flying ahead a short distance before circling back and hovering just long enough for me to catch up.
Every few moments, it rotated its head back to check that I was still following.
I didn’t know how long I’d been running. All I knew was that I still heard Fang and his men crashing through the forest with their snarls.
The owl swooped low again, gliding silently across my path before landing on a crooked branch ahead. Its pale eyes watched me with unsettling focus.
Owls didn’t wait for people, and they certainly didn’t lead them through the forest. But maybe they did in Juniper Woods. For a strange reason, it was helping me.
A shout echoed somewhere behind me that made my stomach drop. “She went this way!”
Fang.
The owl took off again, disappearing through a gap in the trees and I followed. It dropped onto a branch above a dense patch of brush and stared down at me. I didn’t understand why until I heard the voices.
Fang and his men were close now. Very close.
I hid behind the thick bush just as the first of them broke through the trees. The owl followed me down silently and landed on my shoulder. I froze when I felt the soft press of feathers against my lips. The owl had stretched one wing across my mouth, silencing me.
That’s definitely not normal, I thought.
The owl’s head tilted toward me again, its eyes catching the thin moonlight. They were strangely clouded, the colors within swirling faintly like mist behind glass.
My breath hitched. I recognized them!
May?
Boots crushed through the undergrowth just a few yards away. Fang’s voice cut through the trees. “Spread out,” he growled. “She can’t have gotten far.”
Then another voice called from deeper in the fog before the Lycans could move: “Fang!”
I held my breath and carefully parted a few thin branches in front of my face, peering through the tangled brush. I could just make out the clearing beyond. Several Lycans emerged out of the darkness, their eyes glowed faintly in the mist as they approached the clearing.
“Erik sent us to check on the girl,” one of them said.
Fang’s tone turned irritated. “She slipped her leash,” he said flatly. “Split up,” Fang ordered. He pointed into the fog. “You three head east and check the ridge. If she’s running blind, she’ll head for the drop.”
The Lycans exchanged quick glances before turning and disappearing into the trees.
Fang looked back toward my direction. “The rest of you come with me,” he said coldly.
The owl’s wing remained pressed firmly over my mouth until the sounds of movement faded deeper into the forest. Only then did it lift away, and I stayed perfectly still while minutes passed before I dared to breathe normally again.
Somewhere off to my left, a group of Lycans crashed through the woods following what must have been my trail. Their voices grew louder as they pushed farther into the fog until suddenly…
A crack split the air—branches snapping, the ground giving way beneath heavy bodies. A chorus of startled shouts turned into screaming as the sound dropped sharply in the distance before cutting off completely.
My heart boomed in my chest, and I was rendered frozen into place.
Suddenly, the forest was silent again.
I blinked into the darkness. What was that? I thought, hysterical.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on it because the owl had already taken flight again.
I scrambled out of the bushes and followed. The terrain changed quickly as we ran, until the forest opened into a narrow clearing hemmed in by a towering wall of granite that rose straight up into the night.
My breath caught.
I had seen this place before.
Not in real life. But in a dream.
The nightmares I’d been having in Graymore slammed into my mind with sudden clarity—the endless forest, the chase, the looming wall of stone closing in around me. The same wall that stood before me now. A cold wave of dread rolled through my chest.
“No,” I whispered.
The owl circled once overhead and vanished into the fog. I watched it leave with a sense of doom.
Leaves rustled behind me. I turned just as Fang stepped out from between the trees, three Lycans following behind him with their golden eyes glowing faintly in the darkness.
Fang smiled. “Well,” he said softly, “I guess even with a head start, humans just aren’t fast enough.”
My back pressed against the granite wall as his Lycans spread out slowly, forming a loose half circle around me. Their nostrils flared as they breathed in my scent, and one of them chuckled.
My mind felt scrambled, desperate. I rushed out, “I-I don’t think Erik will be pleased when he finds out what you’ve done.”
Fang studied me for a moment with amusement. “I don’t care what Erik thinks,” he said. “I don’t answer to him.”
“He’s your boss,” I said as bravely as I could muster.
Fang let out a low laugh. “Erik’s a pawn. His vision is only limited to himself and his family name. There’s a bigger game being played on a larger stage and controlled by those more important than Skoll.”
His gaze flicked briefly toward the distant glow of smoke beyond the trees, and his smile sharpened. “Who do you think set those fires? I’d hoped to burn the whole place down. But you’re right. Erik wouldn’t be pleased with us hunting you…but it pleases me.”
But just as Fang took another slow step toward me, the wind whispered through the trees and a strange shift in the air made several of the Lycans turn and sniff uneasily. Fog thickened across the clearing, curling around their legs like low smoke.
Something moved in the mist. At first I thought it was just the fog settling between the trees, but then shapes began separating from the darkness.
And they weren’t human.
Some were impossibly tall with limbs bent at unnatural angles, while others were crouched low and crooked like broken things trying to stand. Their bodies twisted and stretched, constantly changing shape as they gathered.
I was horrified as my mind struggled to understand what I was seeing. This…they couldn’t be real.
One of the Lycans snarled, “What the—”
One of the shadows suddenly turned toward him. It had something where a face should have been, but the features shifted and warped like smoke trying to form a skull. Then its mouth opened.
The sound that came out was not a voice.
Instead, it shrieked. A long, tearing wail like a bleeding banshee screaming from the depths of a tomb.
The sound ripped through the clearing so violently that I cupped my hands over my ears.
The Lycans recoiled, snarling in confusion and pain as the scream echoed through the trees.
Then the shadows lunged.
One seized a Lycan by the shoulders and dragged him back into the mist. He screamed once before vanishing. Another silhouette surged forward to swallow a second Lycan into the black mass with a choking cry.
Panic exploded through the clearing.
Fang backed away instinctively, his eyes darting wildly through the fog as the shadows kept coming—more of them now, dozens—ripping through the darkness barely contained by the swirling mist.
I covered my mouth with both hands. I didn’t want to see, but I couldn’t look away either.
The forest had now become predator, and Fang and his men were prey.
And I’ll be next, I thought.
A shape prowled from the shadows. At first, I thought it was another monstrous form, but as it moved closer, I saw its eyes…blue and burning. Familiar.
Jonathan.
He emerged from the mist, larger than before, broader and darker, his silver-tipped claws catching the faint moonlight.
Fang stared in disbelief. “You…should be…”
The distance between them vanished in a blur as Jonathan’s claws slammed into Fang’s chest, sending the Lycan crashing backward across the clearing. Fang barely managed to scramble to his feet before Jonathan struck again, raking across his shoulder and driving him down into the dirt.
He tried to counter, snapping his jaws toward Jonathan’s throat, but Jonathan caught him by the neck and hurled him across the ground like a rag doll.
By the time Fang staggered upright again, the clearing had fallen eerily quiet. The shadows were gone. So were his pack.
Fang spun around wildly, his eyes darting across the clearing as if refusing to accept what he had seen. The confidence drained from his face as the truth settled in. Every one of them had been taken, swallowed by the forest like they had never existed.
When his gaze finally landed back on Jonathan, his expression cracked. Terror. Pure and unfiltered terror.
Without another word he turned and ran, crashing through the trees in blind panic and disappearing into the forest.
The clearing fell silent again while Jonathan stood in the center of it, his massive form barely moving as he watched Fang disappear. Then slowly his head turned toward me.
“Jonathan?” I said quietly, hesitantly, my voice trembling.
And for the first time since he’d emerged from the fog, I realized something terrifying.
I didn’t know if this creature was still Jonathan Wolfe anymore.
The shadows that had risen from the forest lingered at the edges of the clearing. But then, one by one, the contorted silhouettes thinned, stretched, and finally disappeared, bleeding back into the darkness. The thick fog cleared. I could see the forest again and the moonlight more clearly.
Jonathan stood in the center of it.
His towering Lycan form wavered. The cerulean glow in his eyes dimmed as his shoulders sagged, the unnatural tension leaving his body slowly.
Then he started to downshift. His massive frame contracted, bones shifting beneath skin as thick black fur receded.
His claws curled back into human hands that trembled as he tried to steady himself.
Within seconds the beast that had stood before me was gone.
Jonathan—my Jonathan—now stood in its place. That I was certain of.