Андреа Кремер - Nightshade

Her smile curved like a hooked dagger. “Well, well. It seems there is much more going on here than I first imagined. What a treat.”

Flynn’s eyes gleamed with pleasure as she absorbed my stricken expression.

“I warned you about straying from your path, Calla. Perhaps now you’ll see how things really are. Renier clearly wants you. If you’re willing to make the sacrifice with him, he might forgive the error of your ways.”

“You’re making the sacrifice?” Shay scrambled away, staring at Flynn and me, horror creeping over his face. “You and Ren?”

“Of course,” Flynn said. “What do you think the fuss over this union is all about? You’re the featured entertainment.”

When I took a step toward Shay, he bared his fangs at me. “Stay where you are.”

“I swear I didn’t know,” I whispered, the forest murmuring dark secrets that filled my ears, making me dizzy. My parents’ conversation, my mother’s insistence about the need for secrecy about what our prey would be, the way she’d paled when I said I knew Shay.

“I didn’t know,” I repeated, dropping to my hands and knees, head spinning. It’s Shay. The sacrifice isn’t going to happen away from the union. It’s part of the union. He’s our prey.

“Courage, little one,” Flynn purred. “You won’t have to bear this much longer. Be a good girl and go to the grove. They’re waiting for you. I’ll bring Shay along shortly. Right after Ren kisses his bride.”

As if bidden by her words, the air swelled with a chorus of wolves’ howls, calling for their alpha. My mother had been right—I couldn’t mistake the meaning of the pack’s cries. I was being summoned. But the sound didn’t beckon me; it was only frightening, deadly. I am no longer one of you . I will not let this happen.

“No!” I drew a hissing breath and struggled to my feet. “We’re leaving. Now.”

Shay shrank from me, flattening himself against a pine tree. I caught the scent of his wolf form and knew he was struggling not to change, trapped between fear and fury.

“I would never hurt you,” I said. “You have to trust me.”

Please believe me, Shay. You have to know how much I care about you.

He scanned the forest, desperate, searching for an escape route.

“Shay, please,” I whispered, stretching my hand toward him. “I love you.”

He went completely still. I didn’t know what frightened me most—what I’d said, what he would say, what was happening all around us. A minute passed where I couldn’t breathe.

“I know,” he finally said, reaching for me. “Let’s get out of here.”

A sound spilled from Nurse Flynn’s throat, something between a shout and a hiss, like splintering bones. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

The shadows at her back began to move and my skin went icy. If wraiths were with her, we didn’t stand a chance. But as I watched, I realized that the dark shapes moved with her, as if they were attached to her very limbs. Her shoulders shuddered when she stepped into full view, immense leathery appendages stretching out around her. Wings.

Shay’s eyes bulged. “What the—”

I dropped to the ground, an angry white wolf, stalking around the succubus. She laughed and flicked her wrist. A long whip appeared from thin air and snaked from her hand. The length of the cord undulated as if it were made of shadows rather than leather.

I leapt out of the way as the whip cracked toward me. It struck my flank, making me yelp. The cut of the leather was nothing compared to the wave of despair that hit me along with the blow.

I was paralyzed by a vision of Ren attacking Shay. I heard my own screams and Efron’s laughter. Sticky, tar-like emotions caught in my mind as they emanated from the gash that the whip had made. She laughed again, narrowed eyes moving to Shay.

“I may not be permitted to kill you, Scion, but we can still play.”

She tilted her head back and I barked a warning. Shay rolled out of the way as a stream of fire shot out from her mouth, scorching the tree where he’d been standing.

My eyes fixed on the whip and its shadow aura. I crouched down and then lunged at her. She shrieked with agony as my jaw clamped down on her wrist, crunching through bone. I jerked to the side, ripping her hand away from her arm. Blood poured onto the ground. I rushed around her, smelling my singed fur as her spouting fire chased me. Flynn screamed in a language I’d never heard, and I was grateful for the deafening howls that filled the air; without them the sounds of our struggle would have led Guardians and Keepers straight to us.

I barked at Shay again, wishing I could shout at him. Why isn’t he shifting into wolf form? I needed help in this fight.

Shay’s gaze locked on the severed hand that I’d dropped from my jaws. He darted forward and grabbed the shadow whip. He pivoted, the long cord swirling in the air and then lashing across Flynn’s chest. She screamed again. Her eyes bulged as she turned toward her unexpected assailant.

His cool, determined stare seemed to unnerve her even more than his skill with the filched weapon. The whip’s length snaked back toward him and then flew out again, this time wrapping around her upper arm above the still-bleeding stump where her hand had been. She shrieked, clawing at the coiled shadow that latched leech-like onto her biceps.

Shay clenched his jaw, giving the whip a sharp jerk. Flynn lost her balance and tumbled to the ground. I flew at her. My fangs sank into her neck, tearing through soft flesh. There was a brief gurgling in her throat, a wisp of smoke rose from her parted lips, and then she was still. I backed off and shifted forms.

Shay stood in silence, staring at the corpse. I hurried to his side and gripped his arm.

“Are you okay?”

He nodded. “What was she?”

“That’s a succubus, but a real one, not one of your uncle’s statues. She’s a netherworld creature that can be summoned by the Keepers, like wraiths.

But incubi and succubi are more closely related to mortals—we can still kill them.” I glanced at Flynn’s unmoving form. “Obviously.”

I shuddered in disgust. “They feed on emotion; that’s why she was always so eager to make us squirm. I should have known.”

Shay uncoiled the end of the whip from her arm. “And what do wraiths feed on?”

“Pain,” I replied, glancing at the whip in his hand. “Indiana Jones, huh?”

He smiled, nodding as he coiled up its length.

“Good role model. Bring that with you; I’m afraid we might need it.”

I touched his face, relieved that he hadn’t been hurt. “Why didn’t you change form?”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to,” he said.

“I didn’t realize I needed to point out that if we are attacked by a fire-breathing bitch, you can change forms.” I punched him on the arm.

“Check, fire-breathing bitches make Shay a wolf boy.” He shook the whip at me. “I have more practice using these than my teeth anyway.”

“Right.” The Guardians’ cries still floated toward the moon. How long would they call before they came looking for me? “We have to get out of here.

Before they realize what’s happened.”

“But we can’t outrun them, can we? Even as wolves?” He followed my glance toward the flickering torches.

“We have to try,” I said, starting to walk away.

“Wait.” Shay clasped my arm, turning me toward him. “Calla, you know, right?”

“Know what?” I asked, caught in the mystery of his eyes.

“That I love you too.”

With tears stinging the corners of my eyes, I shifted into wolf form, licking Shay’s fingers once before I darted into the woods.

THIRTY-THREE

WE WOVE THROUGH THE MAZE OF PINE TREES. The woods thinned; spears of moonlight created columns of ghostly light that split the darkness.