Anne Bishop - Written in Red

Asia broke into a jog.

Meg braked too hard and did a 360-degree spin before regaining control and stomping on the power pedal. She’d be scared later about what she’d just done. Right now, she had to get to the lake. She wasn’t sure if Winter would be there, but Spring would be. Maybe Air and Water too. She hadn’t met Earth or Fire, the other two cousins, but she’d filled a couple of library requests for each of them in the past week. If they were around, they would help her. Wouldn’t they?

A yellow triangle next to the power bar warned her that the BOW wasn’t going to run much longer. Behind her, she glimpsed lights. Those men, the enemy, were still after her.

Almost to the Courtyard Creek Bridge. And once she crossed the bridge, she would be in the Elementals’ part of the Courtyard.

Simon stripped off his clothes, shifted to Wolf , and burst out of the Wolfgard Complex, followed by Blair and Elliot.

Vlad reported.

The lake. Not too far from the Wolfgard land, then. Not far from him.

He took off, running, loping, bounding into and through drifts in the road, moving steadily toward the lake and Meg.

As Thunder and Lightning galloped toward the lake, Jester hung on to the front seat of the sleigh. Every time the horses’ hooves slammed into the ground, the potential for another storm grew in intensity. It could fade; the storms did sometimes. But Jester doubted this one would fade.

Humans often said payback was a bitch. Well, Winter was looking for payback.

Having survived the results when Winter was in full temper, he almost felt sorry for the humans.

Almost.

The yellow warning triangle was replaced by a blinking lightning bolt—the “charge me” symbol. A few seconds later, the BOW rolled to a stop within sight of the bridge. Meg got out, poised to run across the bridge. But the snowmobiles roared into sight, the headlights blinding her.

She knew what it felt like to be free, to have friends, to have a life. To have people she loved. She wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from her.

She bolted down the bank that led to the frozen creek. Harder to catch her, harder to disappear with her if she could reach the creek where she would be in the open and the Others could see her.

Her feet went out from under her, and she slid to the edge of the constructed retaining wall next to the bridge. As soon as she lowered herself to the creek, she screamed “Help!” and began shuffling across the ice.

“Stop!” a man shouted behind her. “Stop, you stupid bitch!”

Meg kept moving toward the other bank, slipping and sliding while men shouted for her to stop.

“Winter!” she yelled. “Winter!”

“Meg?” The voice seemed to come from everywhere—from the snow and from a coldness that was so bitter, Meg felt like she was breathing ice.

“Stop!” a man shouted.

The crack of gunshot. Something hit the ice near Meg’s right foot. Shards struck her, and she jerked to her left, still moving toward the bank.

Cracking sounds under her feet. Remembering Spring’s warning, Meg veered toward the right. Another shot sprayed shards of ice that had her turning back toward the weakened ice.

Winter suddenly appeared on the bank.

“They have guns!” Meg shouted. She tried to hurry and get off the ice before her friend was noticed by the men with guns. Just another step, she thought. Just another step.

“Meg, no!” Winter screamed.

As she took the last step, her hands reaching for the stones that acted as a natural containment wall on this side of the creek, the ice shattered beneath her feet, and Meg went under.

The special messenger swore when the property fell through the ice. Still had a chance to retrieve her. If he could drive off the bitch standing on the bank, his men could cross the bridge and . . .

Two more women suddenly appeared. One of the women leaped from the bank, smashing through the ice while black smoke flowed across the creek toward the hole. The white-haired woman who was dressed like something out of a creepy novel screamed , and then the one standing next to her screamed . And then he couldn’t see anything because it was snowing so hard, and that snow was whipped by such a savage wind, he couldn’t even see his own hand. As he fought his way back up the incline to his snowmobile, he heard tree limbs snapping around him.

What were those bitches?

No chance to recover the property now. Good thing the benefactor had made a subsidiary deal for the Wolf pup with the Sparkletown bigwig who had hired Asia Crane.

Had Asia tried to double-cross all of them when she went after the pup by herself? He didn’t know and, at this point, he didn’t care. He just hoped the pup’s acquisition would be profitable enough to make this job worthwhile.

He crawled the remaining distance toward the barely visible lights of two snowmobiles.

“Report!” he yelled, fighting to gain his feet.

He tripped over one man whose head was almost twisted off the shoulders. Where was the other member of his team? Fucking coward must have run off.

Or was taken?

Lightning tore the sky, closely followed by thunder that shook the ground.

When he reached his snowmobile, he took a moment to recall where he needed to go in order to escape from this place. Then he roared across the bridge.

Fuck this assignment and this fucking city. As soon as he handed over the pup and got paid, he was getting back to civilization. And he hoped his balls fell off if he ever took another assignment that involved the fucking Others.

Cold. So cold. Already impossible to breathe.

Suddenly, Meg’s hands felt the sting of bitter cold air. She tried to grab for something, anything. She thought she felt fur, but she couldn’t hold on.

Cold. So cold.

She slipped back into the dark.

Simon clamped his teeth around her forearm firmly enough to hold her. When Vlad flung her toward the surface, Simon felt her fingers in his fur as she tried to grab him. But she hadn’t been strong enough to hold on.

The ground rumbled beneath him, shaking him off his slippery perch just enough that Meg’s head went under the water again. He hauled on her arm, pulling her back up while Blair grabbed for anything he could without ripping her skin with his teeth and claws.

Vlad was doing his best to keep her where they could reach her, but as smoke he couldn’t help her, and in human form he risked being swept under the ice. Even Water was trying to get Meg to safety, but she didn’t know how— none of them knew how—to help a human.

Shifting to a between form that kept the Wolf head and teeth but gave him the fur-covered body of a man, he finally got his fingers through a belt loop in her jeans and pulled her up the bank.

Smelling blood, he noticed the gash in her chin. He licked off the blood, licked and licked to clean the wound.

Lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled.

Blair said.

Simon replied. She was so cold. If she were a Wolf, he would know what to do. But she wasn’t a Wolf, she was Meg, and he didn’t know what to do except take her to the humans who could fix her.

He squinted at the blinding snow, hunching over Meg to give her some protection. How were they supposed to reach a hospital?