Chapter 33
I FORGOT HOW BIG MY HORN WAS
MORGAN
My heart pounded as I pulled on my clothes. Why were people always coming after me?
People were supposed to love unicorns; every Saturday morning cartoon said so. What was wrong with these people?
Maybe they just needed to see me shifted to feel the awe. I could prance and show off my sparkly hair. People liked sparkles, right? And the colors in my mane were stunning. Colors always made me happy.
Yeah. I doubted that would work.
I grabbed one of the fireplace pokers and dragged it along with me. It was the only weapon I had.
“Okay,” Nelson whispered as he pulled on his shoes. “I’m going to distract them, and you’re going to make a run for it. If you can flag someone down on the highway, do that. Get them to take you to Willow Lake or as close as possible to it—”
“But I thought we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”
Nelson waved to the window where I could see two shadowy figures moving through the trees toward our cabin. “We already have attention. The odds are in our favor that anyone else on the road tonight will be safe.”
“Because not everyone in the world is out to get me,” I said, still feeling bitter about the whole situation. I’d been looking forward to morning sex, damn it. We hadn’t had a chance to try that yet, and that was currently at the top of my bucket list.
“Right.” Nelson nodded as he pulled me close and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I will come for you. Now that we’re bonded, I will always be able to find you.”
“Promise?” I swallowed hard and blinked away my tears.
“Always.”
He wasn’t lying. Whatever happened next, we were together.
“Ready?” Nelson asked.
“I suppose.”
The second Nelson stepped out of my embrace I wanted to grab him and haul him back to me. But he slipped into the darkest shadows in the room before I could. He wasn’t fully shifted, but it was close.
“Shouldn’t they have come in already? Or tried to flush us out or something?” I whispered.
“I’m going to go out to see what they’re doing. If I can, I’ll lure them away.”
“Nelson!” I hissed. Now that I was more awake, I finally understood that he meant to sacrifice himself to save me. “Don’t you dare leave me.”
“Run, Morgan. I will find you.”
Before I could say anything, his shadows seeped out of the cabin and into the night. Damn it. If I’d been more awake when he started throwing around orders, I would have figured out his intent faster. He had to know I’d never agree to this plan.
My sidekick tried to be the hero too often for my peace of mind.
I tightened my grip on the poker as I ducked down and scurried to the door, because that’s what people did in action movies, right? I held my breath as I moved because I needed to hear what was going on outside. So far, I hadn’t heard much, but the figures hadn’t arrived at the cabin yet.
At least I hoped that was why I couldn’t hear them. I really hoped I hadn’t damaged my ears earlier, because, evidently, I was a screamer… Something I was regretting now.
I turned the doorknob slowly. Opening the door felt dangerous, like I was inviting these strangers into our little haven. Although if someone wanted to get inside the cabin, a closed door wouldn’t keep them out.
Besides, Nelson had said I should run. That meant getting outside.
I hated this plan. I didn’t want to go outside. I didn’t want to run.
Bile flirted with the back of my throat as a familiar dread crawled over me. I’d felt all this before, when my uncle was killed. That time, I’d bolted like a horse from a burning barn. This time, I wished I was a chameleon instead of a unicorn. I wanted to stay and hide.
Unfortunately, unicorns weren’t meant to hide.
At least I didn’t think we were. We were too pretty. We sparkled. Our horns shone. We were every color in the rainbow.
Everything about us attracted attention.
Although the fact that I didn’t know any other unicorns to ask might mean other unicorns were actually masters of hiding. Unless every other unicorn had been hunted down, like I was being hunted now.
My heart ached at the thought. But that feeling was familiar too.
I couldn’t let them get me. I had too much to live for. I had Nelson. And Violet. And the chance to use that crystal and find my family. So many amazing reasons to stay alive.
I’d run last time, and it hadn’t worked. Uncle Fraser died. I was captured. I’d ended up in a cage.
This time I’d take a stand. Unicorns were on the coats of arms of ancient warriors for a reason, right? I lifted my chin and shook my head. If I was in my unicorn form, my mane would have danced with the motion.
I pushed the door open wider and finally heard our intruders. Someone’s footsteps were crunching through the snow. A narrow beam of light bounced through the darkness. And our intruders were talking…
“Put your phone away. I know you don’t need it to see. And you’re being too loud,” came a furtive whisper.
“It’s fine,” a woman said. And unfortunately, I now knew who these people were. Judy and Godwin, the wolf and mage duo from the hotel, had found us.
My whole body went cold, and it had nothing to do with the snow.
If I ran, could the wolf catch me? It wasn’t like I trained for marathons, and I wasn’t a racehorse. But wolves usually hunted in packs and targeted weak animals, so it might mean they couldn’t do much on their own.
But if I left, what would happen to Nelson?
I said it before, but it was worth repeating: I hated this plan.
“What if it isn’t them?”
“It has to be them. They haven’t shown up anywhere since the roads closed—we would have seen them when we hacked the cameras along the highway. And no one is supposed to be out here right now, so why does a cabin have smoke coming out its chimney? Besides, I smell…” The wolf’s words trailed off.
What did she smell? At the hotel, she’d said I smelled like candy. Was that it?
And here I was, once again wishing I’d disguised my scent along with my features.
I really needed to think about carrying someone else’s dirty gym socks in my pockets.
Sure, that would be disgusting, but what else could I do?
Sew moth balls into my clothes? Ew, that was almost worse than dirty socks.
Maybe I could douse myself in peppermint oil?
Or was peppermint too closely connected to sweets?
I didn’t want to make my scent more candy-like.
Oh, what about pine? Yeah. I could probably do pine. And it’d remind me of this little getaway. Although we hadn’t spent much time outside with the trees, they were still all around us.
Right. Pine was now my scent blocker of choice. If we got out of this, that’s what I’d do.
No. That was the wrong attitude.
Of course we’d get out of this. This memory and the scent of pine would not be tainted by anything bad. I wouldn’t let it.
Every single day I made a choice to be happy instead of sad. And some days that was incredibly difficult. But I did it because the alternative sucked. So today I was choosing to survive and kick these assholes’ asses.
They had no idea how powerful my willpower was.
“Fuck. What was that?” the mage asked. The tone of his voice betrayed a hint of fear.
“What?” The woman’s question came out sharp.
“The shadows are moving. Fuck this.” A fiery light burst to life amid the trees, and I could see the intruders clearly now. The mage’s hand was trembling as he lifted the fireball in his hand and peered into the dark landscape. He might feel safer in the light, but he’d just shown us where he was.
The woman’s nostrils flared as she cursed. In a blur of movement, she shifted. Her wolf wasn’t huge, but it looked powerful. Her sharp teeth glistened under the mage’s flickering light.
She spun around, snapping at something on her left, then her right.
Was she biting at Nelson?
Another shadowy figure—something small and fast—swept through the trees, and I knew without a doubt that wasn’t my mate. Someone else was here.
Well, fudge nuts… These guys had started multiplying.
The urge to run, just like Nelson wanted me to, was overriding every other thought in my head except one: Nelson. I needed him to be safe. I needed him with me. I couldn’t leave him behind like I did with Uncle Fraser. I just couldn’t.
“Go away, shadow jumper. We aren’t here for you.” The mage was trying to put on a brave face, but his voice quavered as he spoke. “But if you stand in our way, you will regret it.”
Their threat hit me like a physical blow.
I didn’t know how they knew about Nelson being a shadow jumper, but I wouldn’t let them hurt him. No way. I stepped away from the door and set the fireplace poker on the counter as quietly as I could. I didn’t need it for what I had planned.
Staying within the shelter of the cabin so my sparkles wouldn’t be seen, I felt magic tickle across my skin as my shift rolled over me. I ducked my head so my horn didn’t hit the ceiling. Then I pawed at the wooden floor with my hooves, ready to charge into the night and defend my mate.
The fire mage whirled around, shooting sparks into the darkness. The wolf was growling and baring her teeth. Saliva dripped from her shiny, pointy canines.
“Stand down.” An aristocratic command detonated through the dark snowy landscape.
I froze. I recognized that voice. It was Keenan, the vampire. What in magic was he doing here? I thought he liked Nelson and me. I hated being wrong.
Rather than obeying, fire poured off the mage’s shaking hands.
His flames melted the snow around him as he spun around frantically to locate Keenan.
The wolf, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly where the vampire was.
She leaped through the air in a powerful attack.
The mage scrambled through the snow to follow her, but he slipped and fell.
A small black form flew out of the wolf's path.
Was that the vampire?
“Stop, Godwin,” Keenan said. “Surrender.”