I held an arm out in front of Annika, protecting her. If only I’d known that wolves could smell when a human had ingested vampire blood… I tried to think of what else I could have done, but came up blank. An older vampire would have known. But I had truly thought this plan would work. I thought I was saving Annika.

Turned out I was only bringing her from being hunted by vampires to being hunted by wolves.

There had to be a way out of this mess. It was well known that the wolves protected themselves against our compulsion with wormwood, which was apparent by the wormwood charm around Valerie’s neck. And the strength of wolves matched that of vampires, so with eight of them against the two of us, fighting would be too risky. Especially because my training was limited to what I’d learned this past year, and Annika had no training at all.

I glanced around the woods, sizing up my surroundings to figure out my next move.

Then Valerie shifted back into wolf form.

Before she had a chance to pounce, I grabbed Annika’s arm and jumped. Annika must have had a similar idea, because the two of us landed firmly on a branch of a tree at least ten feet from the ground.

Valerie landed face first in the snow.

She stood up and shook the snow off her fur, and the other wolves paced around the base of the tree. All of them growled up at us.

“I thought you said the wolves wouldn’t attack us,” Annika said through gritted teeth.

I just ripped a branch off the tree, aimed it down at one of the wolves, and threw.

It impaled the wolf straight through its back, pinning it to the ground. Blood splattered in the snow underneath of it. The wolf dropped its head and went still.

“One down,” I growled, snapping another branch off the tree. “Seven to go.”

I aimed this one at Valerie, but she rolled out of the way, the branch missing her by a few inches.

Annika snapped another branch off the tree, preparing to aim.

“We have a limited number of branches here before we’ll have to jump to the next tree and start again,” I warned her. “How’s your aim?”

“Let’s see.” She propelled the branch down, getting one of the other wolves—a gray one—in his shoulder.

The wolf whimpered, blood dripping onto the snow, but the blow wasn’t fatal.

“Nice.” I nodded, impressed that she’d managed to hit a wolf at all. “Where’d you learn how to aim like that?”

“Darts.” She shrugged. “We play a lot at the Tavern.”

Valerie grabbed the branch out of the gray wolf’s side with her teeth, and the bleeding slowed.

The wolf took a few heavy breaths, and then it stood on its hind legs, balancing its front paws on tree trunk and growling.

Annika’s face fell. “The wolf’s healing,” she realized.

“You need to get them in the heart,” I told her. “That shot would have killed a regular wolf—it would have bled out—but these are shifters. They have healing abilities similar to vampires.”

The gray wolf was being reckless—standing that way exposed its chest.

In a flash, I broke off another branch and threw it down, impaling the wolf straight through its heart.

It fell backward, the thrust of the throw shooting it to the ground. The wolf landed on its back. Its eyes were blank, and the branch stuck up toward the sky.

One of the other wolves—a snowy white one—let out a long howl and ran toward the gray wolf, poking him with her nose. She howled again and again, the pain-filled cries echoing through the forest.

I could only guess that the fallen wolf had been her mate.

“We didn’t come here to fight,” I yelled down to them, loud enough to be heard over the howls. “No one else has to die today. Just let us pass.”

Valerie shifted back into human form and sped over to the corpse of the gray wolf, yanking the branch out of its chest. “You’ve killed two of my pack.” She snarled. “And you’re going to pay.” She pulled her arm back, red hair flying in the wind as she heaved the branch up toward Annika.

I shielded the human girl with my body and moved us both to the side, but we didn’t have much room to move in the tree. Pain shot through my body as the branch entered my back near my right shoulder. I sucked in a deep breath, stopping myself from crying out.

Vampires might be able to heal, but every injury hurt us just as much as it would a human. More so, because our senses were heightened.

Annika held onto both of my arms, steadying me to stop me from falling. “You risked your life to save me,” she realized, staring up at me in wonder. “If you hadn’t done that…”

“The branch would have gone straight through your heart.” I reached behind myself and yanked out the branch, breathing steadily as I felt the skin knit together. The injury—and the energy it took to heal it—would cost me. I would have to feed sooner than intended.

But I couldn’t worry about that now. Right now, my only worry was defeating the wolves.

I turned around as another branch soared toward us, but I threw my arm out, catching it mid-air. I shot it back down toward Valerie at the same time as she threw another branch up at us.

I reached for Annika’s hand, trying to anticipate the path of the branch so we could both avoid it.

But both branches came to a sudden stop mid-air. They floated there, as if someone had pressed pause, and I held my breath as I stared at them.

I only knew of one creature capable of performing such a feat.

A witch.

Camelia had found us.