Spring

Shimmer save me, I’m like a giant dog toy that’s been stuffed with peanut butter and a squeaker. My body is basically screaming eat me please.

A shout drags my focus to the north just in time to spot the first hound. The giant ebony beast bursts from the churning sea of mist blanketing the hills. The size of a truck, the creature appears more wolf than hound.

Frozen, I take in the glowing red eyes and snarling snout, lined with jagged fangs and slobber.

Then I’m sprinting with the others as we run for our lives.

13

Despite being gripped by absolute, blind panic, my mind somehow decides it’s helpful to remind myself this is the second time this week I’ve had to literally run for my life.

Gazelle. You’re a mother-freaking gazelle.

Just like a gazelle, I fight and claw my way to the inside of the pack. National Geographic taught me the animals on the outside get picked off first.

Strength in numbers. I leap over a falling girl just before she disappears into the mist. My sandals are long gone, my dress riding up my thighs.

Maybe my pasty white ass will scare away the hounds. Either that or act as a beacon that draws them to me.

“That’s it, Kid!” Ruby roars where she clings to the top of my head, her tiny fists clumped into my hair. I don’t even have the mental capacity right now to be affronted by her riding my skull like a jockey.

Shouldering my way to the front, I scan the faces of the terrified shadows, desperate to find Mack.

“Leave her,” Ruby demands. “Dragon boy will keep her safe.”

I don’t care what Ruby says. I’m not leaving my friend until I see her with Asher.

Mist swirls around our waists, so thick I can’t make out the ground. The baying of the hounds is growing louder.

Four shadows go down ahead, tripped by something.

“Jump!” Ruby shrieks just as the top few inches of a hedge appear in front of me.

Fueled on adrenaline, I leap, clearing the bush like an Olympic hurdler.

“Again!”

My heart pounds in rhythm to my feet as I sprint, leap. Sprint, leap. My need to find Mack overrides my urge to help those who have fallen.

As I’m forced to block out their cries, my hatred for the Fae surges into a searing inferno.

The garden gives way to a sloping lawn, and the crowd spreads out. Someone calls my name behind me and to my right. Mack! She’s trapped behind a trio of three girls who keep tripping.

“No!” Ruby yells as I swerve to meet Mack.

Ignoring the enraged sprite digging her toes into my temples, I swoop next to Mack, grab her arm, and drag her around the trio.

Mack’s eyes are wide as she pumps her arms, struggling to catch up. “Summer! I thought—”

A roar splits the night. We both look to see one of the girls from the tree get taken down by a dark, hulking beast. My fear ratchets up a notch as I see how the wolfish creature tosses her around like a rag doll, too overcome with its predatory instinct to remember she’s mortal and therefore breakable.

“Lycan,” Mack hisses.

The shaggy creature is about to slip its chain around the girl’s neck when another fully shifted lycan slams into the beast. They explode into a violent brawl over the girl.

“Asher will find me,” Mack pants. “We just need to not get taken until then.”

The mist is growing thicker. The shadows are slowing, disoriented by the chaotic crush of bodies and fog. Screams pepper the air all around us as the Evermore begin picking off the stragglers.

“Ditch this herd of bumbling idiots,” Ruby orders.

I’m not sure when my drunken sprite became the de facto leader of this shitshow, but she’s right. I spot a path into the woods up ahead on the left. Grabbing Mack’s hand, I cut sideways, my bare feet pounding the lawn. Mack struggles to keep up with my pace, but I drag her along with sheer willpower.

The mist lessens inside the forest, enough that I can pick out the path. Moonlight filters down softly. The horrifying din of growls and cries fade until I can almost pretend it’s coming from some bad horror movie and not real life.

This isn’t happening. We’re not being chased by crazed half-shifted Fae and hellhounds on a Wild Hunt with chains.

That delusion gets ripped to shreds as the forest explodes behind us, followed by a howl so loud it shakes the trees.

“Faster!” Ruby orders, kicking her heels into my head.

A few other shadows followed us, and we all sprint down the trail as the hound gains on us. Branches scratch at my face and arms, brambles gouging my bare legs and tearing my dress. My bare feet slip and slide over mud and moss and rocks.

A sudden clearing opens up. A few feet in the distance, the earth gives way. A churning river burbles below the cliffs, the dark blue ribbon cutting through the canyon. The river ends abruptly . . .

A waterfall. A really high waterfall, from the loud roar of the crashing water.

“We’re trapped,” Mack pants.

Limbs crack in the woods behind us as the hound closes in. I glance around, desperate for a way to escape, and spot something dark shooting from the sky straight toward us.

Valerian! The figure’s wings flare out as he slows his descent to land. As I make out the leathery gray wings and green markings, disappointment fills me.

Not Valerian.

Pushing aside my emotions, I insert myself in front of Mack as the dragon shifter prowls toward us. I scan his face for signs his predatory nature has taken over completely.

Yellow, bestial eyes watch Mack, their pupils slit down the middle. Other than his wings, he’s managed to halt his transformation to full dragon.

“Stop right there!” I yell as the others all huddle behind me. Besides Mack and the sprite now attached to my head, three shadows—two girls and a boy—are trapped on the cliff.

Slowly, he drags his intense gaze off Mack. Recognition flares in those eerie dragon eyes—too slow for comfort, but he may be our only hope.

“You’re both coming with me,” he orders, holding his large hands out in front of him. “I’m taking you both to safety.”

“No.” I jerk my head toward the woods. “Not until you fly everyone to the other side first.”

His nostrils flare, and I see him fighting his inner dragon as his attention keeps gravitating to Mack.

Mack steps forward. “Please, Asher. Take them first and then come back for us. I swear, once we’re all safely on the other side, you can have me.”

Instead of talking sense into him, the sound of her voice seems to elicit a crazed excitement inside dragon boy, and I prepare myself to fight the giant idiot. Right now, he’s the only thing standing between the other students and the approaching hellhound.

Somewhere deep inside, he must know Mack would never forgive him if he let the other students get hurt, because he releases a frustrated snarl before backing down.

“Okay, I’ll help them.” His voice is gravelly, but at least it sounds like him now, some of the magic from the hunt wearing off.

He flicks another longing gaze at my friend. Then he swoops the first two shadows into his brawny arms, one student literally lodged on either side like footballs, and shoots across the canyon. I hardly take a breath before he’s back.

I scour the star-encrusted sky. “Where’s the Winter Prince?”

“Eclipsa is fighting him off. He can’t be around you yet. Not until the magic of the hunt wears off. That’s why I’m here.”

“Surely if you can control it, so can he?”

The dragon shifter blinks at me, as if talking while trying to control himself is too much. “Don’t let him near you right now, Summer.”

He wraps Mack and the final girl into his arms. His wings flare as he prepares to rocket them into the sky.

“No,” Mack protests, trying to wiggle from his grasp. “Take Summer first and then return for me.”

But I can see by the intensity of his stare that there’s no more holding him back from her, which fits right into my plan anyway.

They streak across the canyon to the other side. I watch, relief pouring through me.

“Hurry up, lizard breath,” Ruby mutters, pacing anxiously on top of my head.

“The Winter Prince will be here soon,” I say. I don’t care what Asher says, Valerian won’t hurt me.

Ruby tugs on a strand of my hair, hard. “Don’t be such a naive human! What do you think will happen with that thing between you and him you pretend isn’t real?”

After Inara publicly implied the soulbond was a mistake, I let my friends believe that was the truth.

But the look in Ruby’s eyes says there’s no hiding the truth, so I don’t bother trying.

“He can control it,” I insist.

“Maybe before,” she remarks. “But when the horn was activated, the magic dredged from the depths of the Fae hells amplified his primal urges a hundred fold, including that. If he finds you before it wears off, he won’t be able to control himself.”

“You don’t know him, Ruby—”

“He’s an Evermore, Kid. He may have been able to resist the mating bond before, but only because he spends every second around you fighting the beast that lives inside him. The Fae are tied to nature in a way mortals will never understand, but the Evermore have a direct line to that raw, ancient power. Have you ever seen something in nature not take what it wants?”

Take what it wants? I shiver. “So, you’re saying . . .?”

“If he finds you in his present state, nothing in this world will stop him from making you his mate.”

I know the power of that bond as is—but amplified a hundred fold? I can’t even imagine something that strong.

Before I can respond, a low growl sounds from the forest line.

The hound.

I flick a desperate glance to the other side to see Asher fighting another Evermore, this one nearly completely shifted into a bear. Their roars reverberate through the canyon.

I pivot back to face the hound just as the lupine beast bursts from the trees. As I take in the fiery red eyes, shaggy coal-black fur rippling with muscle, and bared fangs, primal terror takes hold, stripping the air from my lungs.