I zoomed through the woods at the northside of Wolf City before taking a break to lean against a tree, panting from the exertion. I’d pricked my fingers raw, dapping little dots of blood on trees, or doors of houses or car windows. Then they would heal up and I’d throw on my cuffs before zooming off. It had worked, but now the city was crawling with vampires. They’d pulled everyone from Sterling Hill and the surrounding area and put them on the hunt for me. When my cuffs were on, they couldn’t scent me, not like they normally would. I probably smelled human. I was able to hide behind buildings and catch parts of their conversations. The queen had been called in when they recognized it as my blood, and they all thought I was injured, which was good.
I’d been at this for two hours and I’d already had to kill two of them because they were catching up with me. I was slowing down, getting weaker. I shoved half a hunk of protein bar in my mouth to keep my energy up and mentally checked in with Rab while I chewed.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Good, we’ve got half our people out. There was a bit of a close call with a scout in the woods, but we killed him before he could report back. The first wave of people have reached Paladin Village. Your parents, Astra, and the baby are with them.’
That was a huge relief. ‘Okay, thanks. Check in the moment you’re all out, or if something goes wrong.’
‘Will do.’
I heard the snapping of a tree branch and ripped off the cuffs before taking off into the woods. The issue with wearing the cuffs was that I was basically human with them on, which was good for masking smell but bad for fighting or running fast. I could only outrun the vamps with them off, which led them to my general location eventually.
I can do this … just another hour or so, I thought as my muscles burned and strained to keep up with my superhuman movement. I was just heading west to cut across the stretch of woods that lay in that direction when I felt him.
Sawyer. His presence filled me up so strongly, so quickly, that I gasped, and an involuntary sob escaped me.
‘My love,’ his voice boomed inside my head. ‘I feel you for the first time in a year. I only have seconds. Tell me you’re alive and well.’
I burst into tears at the sudden adoration and completeness that filled me up at his words. ‘I’m alive. I…’ How did you tell someone you had a secret baby in the woods they didn’t know about?
You just did it…
‘I was pregnant before I left and didn’t know. We have a baby boy, Creek Curt Calloway-Hudson.’
Shock ripped through our bond as his feelings filtered into me for the first time in a year, and then a surge of joy and pride followed. ‘Demi. A boy. That’s amazing, you’re amazing. I…’
He was silent, speechless as I would expect.
‘I’m coming to get you,’ I said. ‘I just need a few days to get everyone situated from the bunker to the Paladin Village, and then I’m coming.’
Panic seized our bond. ‘No, don’t. That’s what they want, they’re wait—’
His voice cut off, as did his presence, and I was left with such a sudden empty feeling it made me physically sick. I slowed my run, slapping the cuffs on as I burst into a puddle of tears. I continued to jog at human speed, but my mind raced frantically.
They’re wait … ing for me? To come get him? Is that what he was going to say before he was cut off? Whatever magic they did over our bond must have its limits because he’d been able to push through for a short moment. Which meant that maybe he could do it again now that he knew I was back. What if he’d been trying every few days for the past year? The thought shook me. There was no way I wasn’t going to bust him out of there. But if they were waiting for me to do that, I was more hesitant. I needed a plan. I needed to know more about Magic City Prison before I just went barging in there, right?
I chewed on my lip, my mind engrossed in thoughts of Sawyer and rescuing him, and kissing him, and his wonderful reaction to our son, when I felt the air whoosh past me. Reaching out, I tried to rip the cuff off so I could run super-fast, when a hand clamped over mine to stop me. The fingernails were painted red, and I knew I was about to look up into the eyes of the vampire queen.
“Oh, you have no idea how glad I am to know that you are still alive,” she purred as someone came up and grabbed me from behind. Strong arms yanked my hands behind me and held them tightly against my back, so tightly that I whimpered in pain.
Shit.
‘Rab, I’ve been caught. Plan B,’ I told him. We’d been delighted to learn that with these cuffs I could still mentally speak.
‘On it,’ he responded immediately.
We had decided that should I be caught, we would still go ahead and set off the grenades and create the diversion to hopefully buy me time to get away.
I yanked my arm quickly out of the grasp of the person who stood behind me and my wrist slipped free of the cuff.
“Hold her by the shoulders,” the queen snapped, her eyes going fully black. “I need these cuffs off to siphon her power.” The iron vise-like grip shifted to my shoulder and tightened. That’s when my fight or flight kicked in. I started to buck like a wild woman against the man who held me. Nothing like the word siphon to really set you off.
Pulling out a sleek back gun, the queen held it to the side of my temple and I froze, going completely still.
Fuck.
There were many things I felt confident outrunning or fighting against. A gun to the head was not one of them.
‘Now would be a great time for plan B,’ I reiterated to Rab. Maybe with the distraction, I could get away from them and not get siphoned or my head blown off.
‘Slight issue. Almost there,’ he called back.
Great.
Queen Drake’s hair was pulled into such a tight bun that it lifted the edge of her eyes in a maniacal cat-like way. “I need to sample the goods, dear,” she purred as her teeth extended, pressing into her bottom lip. “I want to see what all the fuss is about. Something I should have done before.” She reached up with her free hand, and grasped the sides of my face, just as her minion yanked my other cuff off. It fell with a thud to the forest floor.
I couldn’t see the dude holding me from behind, but I could tell by the strong grip that he was powerful. His fingernails dug painfully into my shoulders while she held a gun to my head.
There was literally no way out of this for me. My wolf rattled my skin in an effort to break free but I kept her down. I didn’t fancy leaving my son without a mother.
A buzzing vibration started to radiate from her fingertips. The same buzz I’d felt when I’d shaken the prime minister’s hand. That must be how they sensed my power or something.
“Oh yes,” she hummed, and brought her lips closer to mine.
I recoiled the tiniest bit, unsure if she was going to kiss me or bite me or what. That’s when the white light started to leak from my skin. She breathed in, and it funneled into her mouth, her eyes lighting up the same deep blue hue as mine, which made her look even more psycho than she already did. How the hell had breathing in my power changed her freaking eye color!?
Before I could dwell on that, pain laced up my spine as I felt her feeding off of my essence. I bucked a little, but then she pushed the gun harder into my head.
“Now, let’s see if your blood is even more potent.” She grinned like a lunatic, and the next second her teeth sank into my neck. I gasped as pleasure and pain slammed into me with equal measure. The tips of vampire teeth had some type of mild narcotic on them that made you crave their bite. It was psychologically fucking with me to have her feeding off my neck and have it feel good.
“No…” I whimpered.
What happened if she fully drained my essence? Would I die? Or would I just no longer have these extra powers? I had a son to live for now, I had to get out of this situation fast, but I couldn’t make any sudden movements or she’d blow my head off.
‘Would she really? She needs you,’ my wolf said.
My wolf was right. She wanted my power juice, she wasn’t going to shoot me … right?
‘Boom time in three,’ Rab’s voice called out through our bond and I steeled myself. Just in the nick of time. ‘…two … one…’ An explosion rocked the eastern border of our land. The queen jerked her head back in shock as her eyelids fluttered open. Crimson blood stained her lips as she glanced over her shoulder to look at what had caused such a great noise.
It was go time.
Striking out with my thumb, I rammed it into the armpit of her hand holding the gun to my head, and that arm collapsed to her side. Then I butted my head backward and was met with a satisfying crunch and a yelp. Wasting no time, I twisted out of his hold and crouched to the ground where my cuffs lay. Snatching them up, I burst out from between the queen’s legs, knocking her over with a yelp of surprise. Then I ran faster than I ever had in my life, still a bit cloudy from the effects of the bite. I had just broken through the thicket of trees when I felt an unseen force slam into me and knock me to the ground.
What the…?
Tripping over my feet, I fumbled and tucked my head in as I did a full barrel roll. Pain exploded in my shoulder, but I ignored it and popped up quickly. The queen cackled somewhere behind me.
“Oh this feels good!” she shrieked with glee.
Dread sank into my gut like a heavy stone. She was using my own powers against me. On instinct, I pulled out the silver stake I’d placed into my waistband earlier and chucked it about ten feet off to the side. If she wanted to play at this game, I was going to play. Hadn’t Sawyer said when he’d kissed me the first time and accidently taken my power, that he’d been able to run really fast but it wore off quickly? I could only hope that was the case here, because at this rate I wasn’t going to be able to get back to Paladin Village without her trailing me.
I stood, just as she skidded to a stop before me. “Oh, my darling,” she purred. “You are delicious, and worth every inconvenience. Now, be a good girl and come with me so we can harvest a plasma serum from your essence. After that, you are free to go. You have my word.”
Plasma serum.
“Plasma serum for what?” I asked. Curiosity killed the cat. And the wolf too.
“To permanently enhance my people with your abilities of course.” She rubbed her hands together in greed.
Oh hell no. I wasn’t a fucking lab experiment.
“Enhance this, bitch.”
The entire time she’d been standing there, I’d been wrapping my power around the silver stake on the ground like a force field, slowly raising it into the air. Now at my will, it shot forward and slammed into her torso from behind. The stake popped out the other side of her chest, bringing with it a sludge of black blood. Her eyes widened; she yelped in shock. It wasn’t a direct kill hit, more near the armpit, but it would buy me time.
I spun, snaking through the trees like a maniac. My heart beat so loudly I could hear it in my brain. It felt like a drum pumping throughout my entire body. Crossing the grasslands, leaping over farm fences, I finally jumped into a barn, skidding to a stop inches from a cow, and slipped my cuffs on so that I hopefully couldn’t be scented.
The cow mooed and I nodded to him. “Hey, buddy. Mind if I hide out here a while?”
His tail swished, but he turned away from me, unconcerned with my presence. If I could lay low here for an hour to make sure I wasn’t followed, then it might be safe enough to head back to Paladin Village. Assuming everyone was out. Reaching up, I traced the two small divots in my neck, already healing, only a slight scar there that would be gone in an hour. A shiver ran through me at the memory of her sucking on my blood.
I quickly checked my body for cuts, or blood, or any abrasion that might lead the vampires to sniff me out, even with my cuffs on, when my gaze fell onto the giant cow dung patty that lay on the floor.
The pungent odor was vile, but also strong enough to mask everything else.
Sometimes survival was gross, but I was going to have to do what it took to stay alive and lay low. Grabbing a handful of cow dung, I rubbed it onto the front of my black army fatigues, gagging through the process. I rubbed two strips along the front of my legs, and two along my arms, before backing away from the dung in an effort to escape the smell. Except I couldn’t … now I was the smell.
Gross. I fought down a gag as I scanned the space for a place to lay low. I spied a tack room in the corner, with a sink inside, and ran in to wash my hands with soap. On the far wall, hanging near some saddles and helmets, was a handkerchief.
Thank God.
Using my clean hands, I wrapped the hanky around my nose and mouth, breathing a sigh of relief that the smell had lessened to a manageable amount.
‘You okay? Did it work?’ Rab asked suddenly.
‘I got free. Hiding out now in a barn. Will wait an hour and then meet you. Everyone get out?’
I felt his relief through our bond. ‘Everyone but the Independent Council of Douchebags. They decided to stay.’
I almost growled, but in case the queen and her men were stalking around the barn, I didn’t want to call attention to myself with noise. ‘Well, it’s their funeral. I don’t care,’ I said grumpily.
But I did care. I wanted all of us together. I didn’t want Sawyer to come out of prison only to see his people broken into multiple groups, but I couldn’t control them, so whatever.
‘All okay at the village?’
‘We had to take care of a few Ithaki on the outskirts, but I’m heading there now. Arrow went with the first group. He says it’s deserted and completely fertile for planting crops. Fully restored. Good job, Alpha.’
I grinned, taking pride in his praise. It might have taken me a year to restore that damn land, but I restored it and that’s all that mattered. I settled into the tack room, sitting in a corner and staying out of sight, expecting at any moment that the vampires could track my scent, but they never came. Maybe I’d injured the queen worse than I thought. Maybe she was in need of some lifesaving surgery or something. That would be awesome.
I was so tired that my thigh muscles quivered even though I was sitting. I’d run too long and hard and my body was hurting. The minutes ticked by agonizingly slow, and my eyelids started to droop.
No.
I couldn’t fall asleep here. That would be a death sentence. Popping up, I paced the room to stay awake, trying to ignore the exhaustion pulling at my limbs. I’d run nonstop for hours, then the queen stole some of my “essence.” It was a wonder I was still conscious.
After a while, I decided it was now or never. Time to head to Paladin Village.
I tiptoed out into the main barn, seeing that the door was still ajar, just as I’d left it. I would keep the cuffs on and have to just rely on my normal human jogging speed to get back to the village, because I wasn’t going to risk spreading my scent around for the vampires.
Slipping out the barn, I crossed the farmland, and quickly tucked into the trees that bordered the Wild Lands. I knew on the other side was the Ithaki portion, but I had no choice. I’d rather brave them than the vampires right now. Stepping over the orange flags that demarcated the property line, I started a brisk job through the woods.
‘On my way,’ I told Rab. ‘If I don’t run into trouble, I should reach you in the next thirty minutes.’
‘I see you. Go right,’ he said, and shock caused me to slow and look around.
“What?” I whispered out loud.
Rab, Sage, Arrow, and Eugene stepped out from behind an outcrop of trees. They were armed to the teeth and covered in mud paint to camouflage themselves.
“You didn’t think we were going to leave you on your own, did you?” Sage winked.
My throat tightened at the sight of my little protection squad. Their loyalty made tears form in my eyes as I swallowed hard. One by one, their noses wrinkled as they took in the stench covering me.
“No offense, Alpha,” Arrow said, “but you smell like shit.”
Sage pinched her nose. “Literal shit.”
I grinned. “Cow dung. Threw off the vampires. Come on, let’s get home so I can shower.”
With that, we crept through the woods together, working as one unit. I was so used to doing things on my own and having no one else to rely on except for Sage, that I’d forgotten what this felt like. This feeling of being cared for and looked after.
We encountered no trouble on our way back to the Paladin Village, and I was pleased to see the wall around the city being repaired, city and Paladin wolves working side by side, building it higher than ever before.
“They’ll work all night on the fence and only sleep when it’s complete,” Rab told me.
“And the witches said they can do repellent charms and magical tripwire alarms to alert us of an attack,” Sage added.
“Awesome,” I breathed.
Because I was going to need to sleep about twenty-four hours after this marathon of a night, and I would sleep more soundly with a twelve-foot wall around my home and magic repellent charms. Once we stepped inside the village, there was a flurry of activity. People were erecting temporary tents in the middle of the open road. Homes were being swept out with corn husk brooms and repaired. The meeting hall was being rebuilt, with people already laying bricks. It’s like the second people saw a place they could live, they threw everything they had into making it a home. Children were running through the streets, weaving in and out of the tents and pointing up at the darkened sky.
“It’s the moon, it’s the moon!” they yelled.
“Bonus of having over twenty thousand wolves,” Rab stated. “We’ll have the city restored in no time.”
“What’s the food situation?” I asked him as we walked to the birthing center, which was doubling as our medical ward. I spied Astra through the open door, sitting up and drinking something warm.
“Willow buried a giant tin capsule of thousands of seeds before we left. They are still there. We will sow them tomorrow indoors until the weather is better to transplant them outside. Until then we will hunt and fish.”
I nodded, no longer afraid to be without food as I would have been before my year in the Dark Woods. I lived day to day out there, trusting that nature would bring me my next meal, and she always did.
“The creek behind the corn fields is full of salmon,” Arrow piped in. “And the walnut and citrus groves were fully restored when you healed the land. I’ll do inventory of the other permanent crops, but I imagine it will be the same.”
That was the best news ever. I nodded and breathed a sigh of relief. Now that I was alpha, I could feel our land. I knew how big it was, where the borders were, and all the streams and waterways. It was so large that we had only populated twenty percent of it. The rest was left wild and natural, which would be perfect for hunting.
“Sage.” I turned to my bestie and new second-in-command. “Get a team of hunters together, go after big game.”
After our time in the woods together, Sage and I were masters at catching a meal. Starvation turns you into an expert quickly.
She nodded. “You got it.” Then she scurried off.
“Rab can you figure out who will be best on security detail? I want this place crawling with armed wolves. We will not be taken unaware again.”
He bowed slightly to me. “Yes, Alpha.”
‘My love.’ Sawyer’s voice invaded my head and my breath caught in my throat. ‘Things are not looking good here … this might be the last time we speak and I just wanted you to know that I love you so much, and if I can’t make it back to you, I want you to lead our people and raise our son and just be happy, okay?’
Our people. Last time we speak?
My heart hammered in my chest. ‘What do you mean? Why are you saying that?’
‘Sometimes we have to know when to quit. Didn’t you tell me that?’ He sounded dejected, like he’d lost all hope. Something must have happened, something bad.
I did say that, dammit, but I wasn’t ready to give up.
‘No, I’m not giving up on this, on us. There is no happiness without you, Sawyer.’
‘It’s too late, my love.’ His voice faded and I knew I was losing him.
Desperation rushed through me. ‘Don’t say that! Don’t lose hope. I can walk through fucking walls Sawyer, I—’
‘Not here love.’
My heart fell in my chest. ‘I’ll find a way. We’ll be a family. No one tells me what I can and can’t do.’ I growled at him.
‘God I miss that smart fucking mouth. I miss the way you taste.’ Sawyer moaned and a tear slipped free from the corner of my eyes, rolling down my cheek.
‘Sawyer I will get you out. I’ll think of something brilliant and I’ll get you out.’
‘I gotta go. I love you so much.’ He said, I felt him leaving as panic seized me.
‘I’m leaving right now. Just hold on. I’ll be there in a few days!’ I frantically thought through scenarios of how I could get into Light Fey Territory undetected. Tears slid down my face, and I was about to speak again, when a female wail cut through the night. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on who it was. Then she screamed again and I recognized it as Sawyer’s mother.
Oh God.
A stone sank in my stomach as I took off running in the direction of the scream, with Rab and Eugene hot on my trail. It sucked to run at human speeds after knowing what I was capable of, but it was the only way to cover my scent. I had to wear these damn cuffs.
Crisscrossing through the tents and children and general chaos of twenty thousand displaced people with duffle bags, I finally found her. She was in my cottage, the guest house I’d stayed in when I lived here for a short while, sitting in the dusty living room clutching a hand crank radio that my dad was pumping to keep on. My mom stared at the radio in shock while she held baby Creek to her chest.
“What happened?” I asked, but the man on radio started to speak and I froze, listening intently.
“So that’s the latest news from Light Fey City. Just to recap, Sawyer Hudson, former alpha of Wolf City, has been sentenced to death for his crimes, and will be executed via guillotine one week from today.”
A strangled howl cut through my throat as the room spun around me.
Sawyer … death sentence. Executed. Did they change his sentence? So suddenly? Did Queen Drake have anything to do with it? Maybe my running off had inspired her to put in a call. I couldn’t process it all, and before I knew it, black dots danced at the edges of my vision. I started to fall backward, but before I hit the ground, a pair of giant arms caught me, and then Eugene’s voice was there.
“It’s okay. I got you.”
The day had been too hard. I’d run too long, this news was too dark. Instead of fighting the blackness pressing at the edges of my vision, I gave in. A person could only be so strong before they broke, and I’d reached my breaking point.
I came to and immediately reached for the baby, only to find that he wasn’t next to me. Everything came back to me in a rush, and I gasped in panic, until I heard my mother’s voice.
“Shh, I got him, don’t worry,” she whispered from the dark corner of the room, where she sat in a chair bottle feeding him.
I lay back on the bed, letting my heart still. The first shafts of light of a new day were bleeding into the room, highlighting the dust slowly settling in the air.
Sawyer. They were going to murder the love of my life, and I just couldn’t live with myself if I sat back and did nothing, no matter the cost.
I sat up. “Mom … I have to get Sawyer out of there.” I ran my fingers through my tangled hair, glad to find someone had changed my cow dung clothes, probably my mother. But I still wanted a shower desperately.
My mom stood, bringing Creek with her as she sat at the edge of the bed. He played with a loose strand of her golden blond hair and it made me smile to see the bond they were forming.
“Honey, listen to me and listen carefully.” My mom’s voice was firm and strong, and when I met her gaze I saw a fierceness there. “I used to worry so much about you. Especially after your attack. But even just going to Sterling Hill I worried you would be hurt, killed, heartbroken, all of the things every parent worries about.”
I reached out and patted her free hand, totally understanding now that I had a child of my own.
“But I don’t worry anymore,” she said matter-of-factly. “Something about being gone in those woods has changed you. You’re more capable now than ever. I pity the person who gets in the way of you bringing Sawyer home. You can do anything, Demi. I see that now.”
Her words knocked the breath out of me, lighting a fire inside of me that had gone out last night when I’d heard the bad news. She was right. No one was taking Sawyer from me, not before he got to meet his son, and not before I got to love him at least eighty more years.
I stood, looking down at her and the baby, reaching out to stroke Creek’s head as he cooed.
I nodded to my mom. “You’ll watch him? Make sure he’s safe?”
My mom snuggled Creek to her chest. “With my very last breath.”
Leaving him would be hard, but I had to do this. I couldn’t live in a world where I sat idly by as Sawyer was killed for fixing a mistake the justice system made.
I nodded to my mother, and then leaned down to kiss Creek’s forehead. He looked at me with those deep blue eyes and I made my son a promise. A promise I intended to keep.
“Mommy’s going to get Daddy,” I said, and the promise cemented into my heart and worked its way into my bones.
The Dark Woods had turned me into a wild woman, and the Magic City Prison was about to suffer my wrath.
