The priest was absolutely terrified, but that was to be expected; being hunted by a werewolf was not a soothing experience.

“Did you hear that?” he squeaked, clutching the silver cross to his chest with shaking hands.

It was difficult for Alix not to roll her eyes or snap at the man. She reminded herself that he volunteered to help and that alone deserved respect. So, as she scanned the shadowed undergrowth, she said, “Of course I did, just as it intended me to. They want you to hear every cracking branch, see shadows move in the dark, smell the musk of their pelt. They need your fear, Père Henri. They want you to run.”

The wide-eyed young priest gulped and edged closer to her on the dirt path. He breathed in short, quick bursts and stank of stale sweat. Worse, his heart galloped like a panicked horse. If the wolf didn’t attack soon, she would need to put some distance between the father and herself.

A branch snapped, the priest jumped, and she gritted her teeth. Not long, now.

Pére Henri muttered to himself in a constant litany of regret. “Why did I agree to this? Lord, why would I put myself in this foolish position?”

“Because,” she said, carefully calculating her words for effect, “your parishioners are in danger and they need a man of God to protect them from being torn to bloody pieces in their beds.”

His heartbeat redoubled and the scent of his fear billowed out in an invisible cloud, but the priest didn’t break, even when a shadow passed between them and the full moon, throwing the forest path into momentary darkness.

She slid her hands over the pistols hiding beneath her red cloak and listened intently to the sounds of the night. Crickets, owls, and frogs had ceased their symphony. A westward wind rose, making the shadows shift beneath the trees as it carried the scents of the night toward her.

“It has been a quarter of an hour,” Père Henri whispered. “Why does it wait?”

“Because,” she said, slowly thumbing back the hammers on her revolvers. “There is more than one wolf. And,” she gave the frightened man a predatory smile, “because they know who I am.”

Père Henri began praying in a quavering voice, stumbling over the words as his courage broke. His steps faltered. His fear hit a crescendo, and a blood-curdling howl split the silence. The air filled with the sharp scent of human urine.

Poor Pére Henri.

The proof of his vulnerability was too much for the wolves. A large female and smaller male broke cover from opposite sides of the road ahead and hurtled toward them, too fast for mortal eyes to reliably track.

“Run!” Alix barked at the priest, who hiked his skirts above his knees and fled back down the moonlit path with the panicked speed of a hare. He could not outrun them, but he made a distracting target. Fleeing prey was irresistible.

Alix wrenched her eyes from his retreating figure, spun, pulled the revolvers from beneath her cloak, and fired with both hands. Thunder and fire erupted, and the wolves leaped aside into the trees, disappearing into the shadows.

She had creased the male, who crashed into the bushes, thrashing as he tried to cope with the pain of a silver-inflicted wound.

Ten bullets left.

The female spared a glance for her companion but didn’t stop running. Her instincts had taken over, and Pére Henri was a mouthwatering target she couldn't ignore, not to defend her partner, or even to protect herself from the woman with silver bullets.

Alix leveled both pistols and opened fire again. The first bullet took the wolf in the foreleg, breaking the bone with an audible crack that sent her tumbling through the underbrush with a yelp of pain. The second shot went wide, but it gave Alix plenty of time to drop out of the way as the male leaped at her from the shadows. These two were clearly inexperienced.

Alix rolled to her back and fired two shots at his underbelly as he sailed over her head. Six bullets left. He hit the ground and somersaulted to a stop, a crumpled heap of blood and fur and twisted limbs. She spun to her feet and sprinted after the priest, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Damn.

He was faster than she thought, and that meant no distraction for the remaining wolf, who limped out of the bushes and onto the road, massive head held low, moonlight glinting off of an impressive set of teeth as she snarled and circled. Only a fool would think the wolf any less dangerous with a broken leg, and Alix was not a fool.

She angled her body to keep both wolves in her sights. The male wolf wasn’t getting up, and the female was still fast enough to dodge before Alix could squeeze the trigger. She had to anticipate the female and fire where she would be instead of where she was.

Her fur was matted, her muzzle stained with the blood of some innocent who had already been savaged, and her amber eyes were trained on Alix with the burning intensity of intelligence, not merely animal hunger. Now that the spell of Pére Henri’s fear was broken, her human mind was back in control, and that made her more dangerous.

Only four silver bullets remained.

The werewolf circled slowly, just far enough away to dodge if Alix raised her arm, and kept her left ear cocked toward her fallen comrade, who whimpered and twitched in the dirt.

Following an instinct, Alix turned both pistols on him. The female lunged, throwing her body between the woman with the guns and her dying male partner, and Pére Henri screamed in the distance.

Gunfire roared, but Alix didn’t wait to see where she’d hit the female because the coppery scent of human blood filled the air. She fired, then turned and sprinted toward the screaming priest.

Somehow, Pére Henri had climbed an ash tree, but that wouldn’t save him from the werewolf slavering beneath the branches. She had not heard three. The wolf leaped twenty feet and sank it’s claws into the bark.

The father screamed again and scrabbled higher as teeth clacked shut mere inches short of his feet.

Alix took aim as she ran and fired before something hit her from behind, sending her sprawling into the dirt. The female. How was she still on her feet? The silver wounds should have incapacitated her, if not killed her outright. If the wolf hadn’t been seriously wounded, the impact of her attack could have broken Alix’s back, and she would never have healed an injury like that fast enough to save the priest.

Alix rolled to her feet, pistols in hand, just as the smaller male limped into view on the road behind her. For an instant, her mind went blank. The silver should have poisoned them to death by now.

Pére Henri screamed again.

Three werewolves. None of it made sense, but she didn’t have time to discover what was wrong. She had to get them both out of this forest alive with only two silver bullets. Taking the best option available, she sighted down the length of the barrel and fired at the female. The first shot went through her left eye, and the second took her in the chest.

Alix didn’t generally aim for the head; it was too small a target to track and hit reliably, especially on a creature that moved as fast as a werewolf. But she was injured, and her only chance of keeping Pére Henri alive was evening the odds.

The female dropped without a sound and didn’t move.

The male wolf sent a heartbreaking howl tearing through the forest as Alix holstered the empty pistols and drew her silver daggers, sparing a quick glance for the embattled priest. He had climbed higher, into branches too slim to bear the weight of the hungry wolf, who stood on its hind legs, snapping and clawing at the bark in frustration.

Pére Henri didn’t have long.

Neither did she. The wolf closed the distance between them faster than she would have thought possible and hit her like a runaway train. She wrapped her arms around his thick neck and clung to his body with her legs as they hit the ground. He rolled, snapping and scratching, but she held on.

All she needed was a single opening, and her dagger would slide between the creature’s ribs like a warm knife through–what was that smell?

Her heart dropped. Another wolf? She couldn’t take four at once, not without a better plan and more bullets. This job had only been for one werewolf, and she’d brought enough bullets for two, just in case, but not four.

She didn’t have time to wait for the perfect opening, so she released her grip on the creature’s fur, planted her feet to stop them rolling, and stabbed his broad ribcage with both daggers.

The scent of the other wolf grew stronger.

The injured beast twisted like a snake and struck, sinking his teeth through her forearm from one side to the other, locking her right arm in place. The fool didn’t know it, but he’d just sealed his own fate. While his jaw was clamped on her arm, she shifted her grip on the dagger in her left hand, jerked it out of it’s chest, and drove the full length of it through his throat at an angle. Hot blood covered her hand in a silent rush.

The wolf released her arm and jerked away, pulling the handle out of her slippery fingers and twisting on the ground like a worm as he was wracked by the dual pain of his poisoned injury and of the silver.

If the blood loss didn’t kill him, the wolfsbane would.

She didn’t have time to check her own wound because the new wolf was so close she could taste its scent in the air. Something was strange about it, but that thought died away as the biggest werewolf she’d ever seen came crashing through the bushes at a speed that should have been impossible, its sleek body aimed at the tree where Pére Henri’s grip was faltering.

She sprinted toward the tree at an angle to intercept the wolf, dagger held low as she crushed the undergrowth beneath her boots, and leaped. They collided mid-air and hit the ground in a tangle of thrashing limbs. Pain shot up her forearm but she ignored it and held on. It was a good thing she landed on top, because if the wolf had landed on her it would have crushed her ribcage.

As they struggled, she managed a deep cut on the wolf’s left haunch, but it twisted away, faster than it should have been able to, and launched itself at the tree before she regained her feet.

The scent of Pére Henri’s fear was thick in the air, sour and sharp, like a good beer, mixed with the unmistakable tang of human blood. It must have been so tempting the wolf couldn’t even be bothered to defend itself.

Her mouth watered, but she gritted her teeth against the tempting smell and crouched to leap. She had to get between the priest and the snapping wolves.

Before she could jump, both werewolves hit the ground in a swirling, slavering ball of fur and teeth. She dodged them and only spared the odd sight a glance before jumping to the bottom branch and hauling herself up. Both her right hand and bark were slick with blood, making climbing difficult.

The father clung to a high, thin branch with desperate strength, his face white in the moonlight, one leg dangling uselessly beneath him.

“Pére Henri, hang on!” she shouted above the snarling.

He grunted, but his arms shook.

She hauled herself to the branch beneath him, set her hip against the trunk, and reached up. “I’ve got you.”

His head shook violently, eyes closed.

“Dammit, father! If you fall, I won’t be able to save you, and you can’t hold on much longer. I’ll catch you, I promise.”

And if he didn’t hurry, whichever wolf won that fight would be snapping at their heels.

He opened one eye a slit, then glanced down at the fighting werewolves. If it was possible, his face paled further. He didn’t know that the wolves shouldn’t be fighting. With as much fear and adrenaline as he was pumping out, they should be killing themselves trying to get to him. But she would take whatever small favors she could if it meant getting the priest out of this mess alive.

“Come on,” she said, reaching toward his waist. “I’ll catch you.”

He released the branch only reluctantly, slipping low enough that she could grip his belt. She pushed hard against the trunk for balance, grateful for the size of the tree, and pulled him toward herself.

He shrieked when his grip broke, and she jerked his flailing body upright, catching him as his feet hit the fork in the branch and his knees buckled.

“I’ve got you,” she said.

He wrapped every available limb around her and held on with whatever strength he had left. At least the tree was wide enough here that he wouldn’t fall into the tangle of wolves. She leaned out to get a look at the fight. The large wolf was winning, tearing great chunks of flesh from the smaller male and spattering the forest floor with blood.

“The fight is almost over,” she whispered to Père Henri’s shaking form. “I’ll drop on whichever wolf wins and kill it, and then we’ll get you out of here.”

“No,” he begged, momentarily tightening his grip.

“If I don’t, it will come up this tree, and I cannot fight it here.”

“I cant…”

She pried his arms off of her, made sure he was safely balanced against the trunk and swung out onto a limb, prepared to drop…but the fight was over. With a powerful twist of his body, the large wolf tore out the throat of the smaller creature, then spat the flesh on the ground. That was a wound even a werewolf couldn’t heal from.

Without bothering to watch his enemy die, the large werewolf staggered toward the treeline and disappeared into the shadows. Had he been so badly wounded that he would slink away to die? That wasn’t common. Most werewolves would fight and hunt as long as there was blood in their veins. But she couldn’t complain. This was the chance she needed to get Pére Henri to safety.

Maneuvering him out of the tree was nearly as hard as fighting the werewolves had been, and he clung to her like a child once they were back on the ground.

“There,” she said, trying to untangle his arms from around her neck. “We’re safe. You can let go.”

He did, but sank to the ground in a heap of black cloth and clutched his leg, rocking back and forth.

“Oh God, my God,” he prayed, “protect me against evil.”

“Don’t worry, Father,” she said. “People only turn if the wolf savages them unto death.”

He turned his face up to her, panic in his eyes, and then looked back down at his leg. For the first time, Alix noticed the wound. She had smelled the blood but was too focused on the fight to realize what it meant.

She sank to her knees next to the priest and pulled his robes aside. The flesh of his thigh was torn, gaping like a dark, hungry mouth, and a steady stream of blood spurted to pool on the ground beneath him. The fight by the tree had lasted less than a minute. Pére Henri would be dead in less than three more.

She ripped his belt off and applied the tourniquet, though she knew it was useless. Once the wolf had damaged his femoral artery, there was no saving him.

She tied off the tourniquet, but kept pressure on the wound and said, “Listen to me, father. I can staunch the bleeding for a while and try to get you to the village, but there is no equipment there for a transfusion. By the time–”

He shook his head, cutting her off. “I understand.”

“If you die like this, from the wound…”

“I will turn. I know. You warned me before we came here.”

They locked eyes and dread condensed like ice in the pit of her stomach.

His shaking increased, silent tears spilling down his pale cheeks. “Can I–can I pray?”

She swallowed and said, “Of course, father.”

He was halfway through his prayers when his voice weakened. “There’s no time,” he said, falling back against the trunk of the tree. “You must do it. You must–” he swallowed, his delicate adam’s apple bobbing. “Must do it.”

“I’m sorry, father,” she said as she clenched her jaw and drew the silver dagger.

He placed one cold, wet hand over hers and said, “You helped me protect them. We protected them, didn’t we?”

She hadn’t cried in more years than she could count, but tears stung her eyes. “We did. You did.”

He nodded, then took a few quick, shallow breaths, and said, “I feel it, the darkness. It’s like a blanket rolling over me. Do it, my lady. Do it now!”

“Forgive me,” she breathed.

The smile on his face was small and weak, but real. “There is always forgiveness for you.”

She closed her eyes and plunged the dagger into his chest.

His heart fluttered around the blade, trying to reject the foreign object, trying to beat, perhaps even trying to change, but the silver prevented all of it. She sat there with his body in her lap, fingers curled around the blade, till all chance of his changing was long past.

He had been a brave man, braver than she’d given him credit for. And he had protected his village. The people of St. Michelle would no longer cower in the night, afraid of disappearing, or of losing their children, because their parish priest had used himself as bait to draw the monsters away.

“Well, Alix,” she said, voice heavy with disgust. “You’ve earned your coins.”

She buried the priest beneath the tree and fashioned bent branches in the shape of a cross to mark his faith, misplaced as it might have been. The dead wolves had shifted to their human bodies as the magic deserted them in death. Seeing the bodies of werewolves she’d killed become innocent-looking mortals never got easier, but tonight, something was different.

The dead male beneath the tree wasn’t a young man, but he had the sinewy body of a laborer, in drab brown wool. Nothing strange about that. Some men who desired power or strength would seek the forbidden rituals that bonded their spirit to that of the dark wolves. But the other two, a boy no more than fifteen, and a girl nearly into adulthood, both had snub noses, freckles, and red hair. A sister and a brother? Their clothing was also poor, threadbare, and stained.

They bore no resemblance to the dead man.

Werewolves were solitary monsters, too violent and single-minded to cooperate with one another. That made them easier to track and kill. Sometimes a bond between mates was strong enough to keep a hunting pair together, but that was rare, not only because the nature of werewolves didn’t allow it, but because the chances of a loving couple being turned together were slim.

So who were these people, and how had they managed to hunt and fight together?

Dawn began bleeding color and light into the sky, stealing the darkest shadows and turning the world silver-gray. She didn’t have much time.

Alix disposed of the bodies in the usual way, stringing them up by their ankles and tying dried wolfsbane around their necks. Anyone who came across the bodies would know what they had been. Her job was done, and she needed to find a safe place to rest and recover.

She slogged through the underbrush and back toward the road, turning south, and pulling up her hood against the oncoming dawn. Towns and villages were often as afraid of their heroes as they were of their monsters, and it didn’t help that she was both. So, resting in a cave somewhere would be preferable to going back to the village. Not for the first time, she wished she had a horse, but the animals would never abide her.

Alix was wondering what it would be like to simply relax and let a beast of burden haul her tired body to the next town that didn’t know her name when she caught a familiar scent. Her pistols were in her hands before she remembered they were empty. She traded the pistols for daggers and stalked into the underbrush.

The scent and then the sound of heavy breathing led her farther into the trees. There, beneath the branches of a scrubby bush butted against the granite face of a cliff that lined the road, something moved.

She adjusted her grip and pushed the branches aside.

A man lay curled in a fetal position on the ground, long, dark blonde hair covering his face. He had several wounds, was scratched and bruised, with blood plastering his shirt to his skin. Another victim of the werewolves? No wonder she smelled the beast on him.

She slid the daggers into their sheaths and nudged the man’s shoulder with the toe of her boot. Wounded men often woke from sleepy delusions ready to protect themselves from more violence, but he didn’t move.

“Are you okay?” she asked, nudging him again, but he only groaned and curled more tightly, arms wrapped around his middle.

All she wanted was a warm place to sleep, something to eat, and maybe some wine to drink away the vision of life leaving Pére Henri’s eyes. But she couldn’t leave the mauled man to die of exposure or lie there till the scent of his blood drew more mundane predators.

With a sigh she bent and slid her arms beneath the man, wincing when he sucked in a pained breath, and hefted him onto her shoulder.

He was too big to carry far, as his feet nearly dragged the ground and his limp weight was awkward, but she should be able to get them to better shelter than the underside of a bush before her strength gave out.

The scent of his blood was tainted by the wolf stink and the dirt clinging to him, so the smell was manageable, but the faster she could put a safe distance between herself and the wounded man, the better. Caring for him would be easier after she’d recovered and she wasn’t so thirsty.

As it was, his blood was already beginning to soak the shoulder of her cloak. It seeped through her shirt, warm and wet against her skin. She swallowed hard and focused on the other sights, scents, and sounds of the wood, trusting her instincts to guide her.

The man groaned and tried to roll off of her shoulder.

“Nope,” she said as she tightened her grip. “I know it’s uncomfortable but you’re going to have to put up with my shoulder in your guts for a little while longer. I think I hear…”

The wind had picked up and a hollow humming sound echoed off to their left. She found a game trail leading toward the cliff face. Sure enough, behind a stand of saplings, was the thin crack of a cave opening in the rock.

She squeezed through the opening and was relieved to find the place shallow and relatively clean, if not musty and damp. A fire would make the place downright cozy. The man grunted in pain when she plopped him down against the inside of the cave wall.

“Sorry,” she muttered, then turned to forage some firewood, but he reached out and gripped her ankle with surprising strength for someone so battered.

“Wait,” he croaked.

She jerked her ankle out of his grip and said, “If I don’t get you warm, you’ll probably die. And if I don’t get away from you soon…we’ll both regret it. I’ll be back with firewood.”

If she were a normal person, or even a good person, she’d try to staunch his wounds first, make sure he was out of danger and comfortable.

She was neither of those things.

But she was tired, tempted, and too weak to trust her self-control. Alix didn’t need another death on her conscience tonight, so she crept back into the lightening woods and began searching for dry wood to warm and clean the stranger, instead of killing him.

Cyrus lay shivering as the cave floor leached the warmth from his battered body. He instinctively tried to turn on his side so less of his skin was exposed to the rock, but a broken rib sent icy shards of pain crackling through his chest. He froze, breathless. Every muscle was cramped, a constant stream of dull fire burned from his hip down to his knee, and a dozen cuts, bruises, and contusions combined to create a pain that overwhelmed his ability to think.

He could generally handle pain and injury and continue to fight, but when his life was in danger his body monopolized every available resource to heal itself, stealing heat, energy, strength, even his concentration. The magic would heal his wounds if they could be healed, but left him no defense against the pain. He couldn’t even hide in the oblivion of sleep.

Fighting only made the healing process longer, so he lay helpless as wave after wave of torment broke over him. Time faded in and out. Light flared to life somewhere nearby, turning his eyelids dull red. Fire? Blessed warmth on his face. Pressure on his forehead. A steady, low, melodic humming. More pain as his body was pulled and jerked. Something cold against his lips. He clutched the water skin with blind desperation and gulped until he couldn't hold his head up. All the while pain seared and scalded every nerve ending.

But the low humming sound was strangely soothing. He hung onto that sound through every wave of agony until, instead of ocean breakers that pounded him into the rocks beneath, the pain receded to a calm lake, lapping at his feet. The experience became a haze of disconnected thoughts and observations, dissipating like morning fog in the sun, as indistinct as a dream.

When sleep finally claimed him, the last sound he heard was the humming.

**

The scent of roasting meat woke him before the voice did. His breathing stayed the same, he didn’t shift or blink, careful not to give himself away. Instincts honed by years of self-protection told him that he was vulnerable, and surprise was his best defense… but the smell of seared flesh made his mouth water.

“You had better eat some of this,” the voice said. “You’ll need your strength if you plan to survive.”

The voice sounded familiar, low and honeyed, but Cyrus didn’t recognize it and he didn’t move, instead opening up his senses to let his wolf’s instincts tell him what they could. He was either in a small stone hut with an open door or a cave, judging by the echoing quality of the sound. A woman was cooking an animal over a small fire, if his nose were to be believed. The birdsong told him it was nearly nightfall.

The last thing he remembered was killing the werewolf, then hiding beneath a bush to wait out the pain of healing. If he’d been asleep since last night, the wounds must have been life-threatening. They’d certainly hurt enough.

And if the owner of that voice hadn’t killed him while he’d been at their mercy, he’d likely live through the next few minutes. Cyrus opened his eyes and let the world come into focus. He sat up and noticed two very important things he’d overlooked: his leg burned from hip to knee like it was on fire, and he didn’t have free movement of his arms and legs.

He jerked as if to spring away, but his wrists and ankles were bound tightly and he was weaker than he should have been.

“What is this?” he demanded, his voice rough.

The slender silver chain was almost delicate, but it bound him as if it were inch-thick iron. He raised questioning eyes to a woman crouched next to a small fire near the mouth of the cave. She was like the chain, slender but strong, her dark hair in a braid that nearly trailed in the dirt. Her eyes burned like the coals in the fire.

“That,” she said with barely concealed disdain, “is insurance, wolf.”

He blinked. “Wolf?”

The woman’s head tilted to the side, her eyes unblinking. He’d seen hawks move exactly the same way. “I’ve killed enough of your kind to know exactly what you are, so please do not patronize me with that innocent expression.”

“I don’t know what you’re–”

Before he could finish his sentence, she was looming over him, one foot on the chain that bound his hands, the other jerking away the red wool blanket that covered him.

“There,” she said, gesturing to the bloodstain on his hip. “The only wound on your body that hasn’t healed, made by a silver knife coated in aconite.”

He sucked in a pained breath through his teeth and tried to roll away from her hands and condemning eyes. Aconite. Wolfsbane. No wonder the pain had been so extraordinary and he’d nearly died. He was weaker now than he could ever remember being, even before his transformation… and she had done it.

Hazy memories returned from the night before. A woman had been between him and the werewolf he hunted, and he’d tried to avoid her but she had attacked and cut him.

“You,” he spat.

Dark amusement twisted what should have been beautiful features into a rictus of disgust. “I don’t forget a single cut I make, wolf. So thank whatever dark gods you serve you are still alive and not rotting on a tree with the others of your kind. Yet.”

Fury awoke in his chest and stretched, unfurling its claws. “Do not compare me to those beasts,” he said.

His voice was as cold as the blade of a knife, but their relative positions robbed the threat of its edge. He could do nothing, and she knew it. One dark brow arched in derision.

“I’ll do as I please. And you,” she turned, sliced off a steaming piece of meat, then held it out to him on the point of her knife, “will eat what I’ve generously cooked for you.”

His mouth watered, but he didn’t move.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re worth nothing to me, dead, wolf, and I’ve already eaten half of it. There is no poison on this blade. Eat the rabbit.”

If she wanted to kill him, there was nothing he could do about it. At least, not until the Wolfsbane was fully out of his system. And then they’d find out whether her chain could still hold him.

“Afraid, wolf?” she taunted.

Cyrus gritted his teeth, slid the meat from the knife, and smelled it carefully. No traces of anything other than healthy young rabbit. The meat was gone before he could think twice, leaving a sheen of fat on his lips.

She tossed him a water skin. He smelled that, too, then drank until it was empty. The woman watched his every movement as if she could burn him to the ground with her eyes. Her hatred heated the small cave more than the fire.

“Why?” he asked.

She leaned back against the stone wall opposite him, one knee bent and the other leg stretched out in front of her as she played with the end of her braid. “Why what? Why are you still alive? Why am I feeding you when I’d prefer to slide my dagger into your gut and twist?”

“I’d settle for an answer to either question.”

She considered him for an interminable moment, the end of her braid running through her fingers. Again he was struck by her beauty; large, amber eyes framed by thick lashes, olive skin, a stubborn chin and a mouth like a rosebud. Her features fit together with a symmetry and elegance that was arresting.

It wasn’t a face that took you off guard, but one that became more fascinating the longer you looked. And her close-fitting menswear–snug trousers paired with a work shirt and leather vest–did nothing to make the rest of her less interesting. It was too bad she was probably imagining him spitted over the fire.

At last, she said, “I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine.”

His brows raised in surprise. “That’s fair. Why am I alive, when you clearly want me dead?”

“You’re alive because I’m curious.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s more of an answer than you deserve.”

Cyrus clenched his jaw against a response and said, “You’ve chained me when I’ve done you no wrong. In fact, you are the only transgressor here. A full answer is not too much to ask.”

“You are alive because I thought you were a man,” she said, through clenched teeth. “When I happened upon you, you appeared to be a victim of the wolves, so I found a safe place to tend your wounds. It wasn’t until I uncovered the cut I made that I realized you were one of the monsters.”

A short temper and a hatred as deep as his own… but she had a sense of honor. Those were tools he could use against her if given the chance. Being compared to the abominations he hunted was infuriating, but he wouldn’t be able to convince her of his innocence, now. So he used every bit of his hard-fought self-control and inclined his head, accepting the answer.

“What drove you to hunt in a pack?” she asked.

“What?”

“This little arrangement of ours only works if you honor it, wolf.”

“I am not dodging the question,” he said between clenched teeth. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She rolled her eyes. “Werewolves don’t hunt in packs. I have seen mates hunt in pairs, but even that is rare. Last night there were four of you. Why?”

“I doubt you will believe me.”

“Humor me, then.”

Cyrus sighed and shifted his weight, trying to find a sitting position that didn’t cause the fire in his hip to shoot blazing arrows down to his knee. His shirt slipped open with the motion. She must have been telling the truth about checking him for wounds. He reached toward the buttons but his hands were bound too closely to fasten them.

When he raised his eyes, he caught her staring, dark eyes fixed on his chest, nostrils flared. The moment of fascination on her face darkened to furious disgust when she realized he’d seen her.

“Have the decency to cover yourself,” she spat, and threw the red blanket at him. No, it wasn’t a blanket, he realized as he caught it. It was a cloak. He pulled the fabric against his chest and settled back against the wall.

“I wasn’t hunting with them,” he said, at last, “I was hunting them.”

“Why? Did they violate your territory?” She said the word with such scathing derision that he winced. He didn’t blame her, though. Almost all predators claimed territories, places that would provide food and shelter without competition. But a werewolf’s food was mortal flesh.

His gorge rose as memories threatened to overwhelm him, but he controlled those, too, with the ease of long practice.

He said, “That’s another question, and you haven’t earned the answer, yet. You told me why you did not kill me on sight. Why did you leave me alive afterward?”

She pulled a dagger from the top of her boot and began cleaning her fingernails with it as she watched him. “I told you. I was curious. Too many things about last night were wrong, irregular; werewolves hunting in a pack and shrugging off silver wounds that should have incapacitated them. I want answers, and you are the only person who can give them to me. That is why you are alive. Why were you hunting the other werewolves?”

“Because they deserve to die,” he said simply.

She scoffed and pointed the knife at him. “And you don’t?”

“Oh, I do,” he said. “Just not for the same reasons.”

The amused censure faded from her face, and she narrowed her eyes at him. She was beautiful, like a bird of prey or a hunting cat, and she’d kill him just as happily. But he had been honest with her, and maybe she recognized it.

“You demanded full answers from me,” she reminded him.

Cyrus took a deep breath, pulled his mind away from the pain in his leg, and said tiredly, “What is the point in giving you an answer you will not believe?”

“Why are you hunting your own kind?”

“You won’t–”

“Why?”

“Because they are not my kind,” he snarled, rolling half to his feet, pain forgotten. “I am not like those creatures. They are unnatural, an aberration, and they all deserve death, every one of them.”

She leaned away from his fury, surprise and confusion drawing her brows together. “Do you really think you can fool me? Me? Do you not realize whose cloak you are using to shield your nakedness?”

The adrenaline from that short bout of fury drained him as if someone had been slowly pouring him out of his body, like an emptying wineskin. He collapsed back against the wall, breathing hard. “I have no reason to lie to you.”

“No? Saving your own life isn’t a reason?”

“I am not really worth saving,” he mumbled. The cave darkened as if the fire were quickly dying, but he still felt the heat on his legs. His limbs were growing heavy and his tongue didn’t seem to want to communicate, but he managed to slur, “What’re your plans to do with me?”

She smiled, as wicked and sharp as the dagger in her hands. “I plan to turn you over to the Sisters of St. Christopher.”

The darkness closed in before he could start laughing.

Forcing herself to release her grip on the hilt of her dagger was one of the most difficult things Alix had ever done.

She stared down at him and grimaced. Even weak and bound with silver there had been strength and intelligence in his eyes, and a calm calculation that was intimidating. That he was conscious at all was disconcerting. Most werewolves slept through the day during the full moon cycle, the involuntary transformation having drained their resources. He had sat there, looking more like a lion than a wolf with his mane of dark gold hair and amber eyes, and tried to reason with her.

Any normal werewolf would have been frothing and cursing and threatening to rip her throat out.

He would make an interesting specimen for the Sisters to study, if she could find a way to transport him. Alix would rather have killed him, but the Sisters so rarely had a live wolf to test their elixirs on. And they had been sponsoring her hunts for years, so the least she could do was present them with this anomaly.

Before darkness fell, Alix cut down a couple of thick young saplings and bound her cloak between them to serve as a litter. Then she sharpened the tip of another sapling and held the end above the fire, turning it slowly, letting the heat drive away the moisture in the wood as it darkened. The tip would be harder, hard enough to puncture werewolf skin, even if the shaft would be more brittle. If it broke off and impeded movement, all the better.

She would load the wolf on the litter and drag him out of the cave as soon as the sun rose. It was the last full moon of the cycle, her silver was dangerously low, and she didn’t want to risk another encounter while she had a prisoner to haul who could turn on her at any moment.

With that in mind, she caught and skinned two more rabbits and a squirrel, refilled her waterskin from a nearby spring, and returned to the cave before sundown.

Her prisoner was still asleep, but he wouldn't be for long. The full moon would see to that. The silver chain should impede his transformation despite the imperative of the magic tying him to the moon, but with all of the strange occurrences she’d encountered, taking chances could get her killed. So she fed another log to the fire, sat with her back to the opposite wall, and held the spear across her lap. Her daggers would be there if she needed them, but she’d much rather keep him at a distance.

Night fell and crickets began to sing as she watched the werewolf and the cave filled with the scent of roasting meat. His big body jerked every now and then, like a horse twitching off flies, back and shoulder muscles straining against the thin cotton of his shirt. Was he dreaming or fighting the magic?

He spasmed again, this time accompanied by a low cry of pain, his dark blonde brows drawing together as his hands tightened into fists. A moment later he whimpered, “I’m sorry. Mama, I’m sorry.”

Alix gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on the spear. She had no business feeling sorry for a monster, even if his dreams echoed her own. How many times had she wished she could tell her mother she was sorry? Sorry for leaving, sorry for making her wonder what had happened to her daughter and the woman she called mother. Sorry for never coming home.

“Nooo,” he whined, body arching as if he could pull away from something. “It wasn’t my fault. I–it wasn’t…Lyrus…”

She was suddenly nine years old again, kneeling in a pool of blood on the cottage floor, her fingers locked around a knife as she cried, “It wasn’t my fault,” in an anguished voice no one would ever hear.

He rolled to his back, chest heaving and a sheen of sweat standing out bright on his forehead and upper lip.

“Shit,” she swore and lunged to her feet, flipped the spear around, and poked him in the belly. “Wake up, wolf. It’s only a dream. Wake up!”

It was never a good idea to wake a dangerous person from a nightmare, but she couldn’t handle the memories his pain dragged up. She jabbed him again. “Wake up!”

He gasped and jerked into a sitting position so quickly that she had to jump back. A knife was in her hand before she consciously thought to draw it. He searched the room, eyes flying from stone roof to stone floor as he tried to orient himself while pulling in great lungfuls of air. Then he noticed the silver chain that bound him hand and foot, and collapsed back onto the floor with a groan.

“Would it have been too much to ask for you to kill me?” he asked, plaintively.

“I still might, if you don’t stop making my life harder,” she spat, irritated that she’d managed to feel any emotion other than anger toward the monster. He ignored that and she returned to her post on the other side of the fire. Now that he wasn’t suffering, her memories retreated back to the dark corners she had banished them to years ago.

He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, his breath coming easier and more slowly.

“Why haven’t you changed? How are you fighting the moon?” she asked.

He sighed, sat up, and held out his bound hands. “Water, first?”

She tossed him the skin, which he caught easily, and watched as his adams apple bobbed while he drank. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When he’d woken the first time he had looked drained, hollow-cheeked and disoriented. Now there was color in his cheeks and the dark circles beneath his eyes were gone. He should have been sweating, fighting the chains, his body struggling to complete the transformation demanded by the moon. But he simply sat there with firelight golden in his hair, amber eyes glowing with uncomfortable intelligence.

“I am not a slave to the moon,” he said.

Alix snorted. “Of course you are, that is what it means to be a werewolf. But it is going to be a long night, so” –She crossed her legs at the ankles and made a sweeping gesture with one hand– “Please. Entertain me.”

A light kindled in his eyes as he looked at her, something feral and hungry that made her breath catch. The corner of his mouth quirked in a grin that would have curled her toes if he was a man and not a monster.

“Unlock this chain,” he coaxed in a low voice, “and I’d be happy to entertain you, minx. All night long. Or, as long as you can handle me.”

She drew the knife, pointed it at him, and snarled, “Don’t forget that killing you would please me much more than keeping you alive, wolf. So watch your tongue.”

“I could certainly please you with my tongue if you wish it.”

She felt her cheeks go up in flames, felt her heart jump into a gallop, and watched a self-satisfied smile creep across his face. That smile said he had found a weapon that snuck past her armor, and he would use it.

“Not if I cut it out, first.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “You certainly are a violent prude, minx, I will give you that much. Throw me a bit of that meat and I will explain why the moon does not rule me. Unless you have a better idea for something I can do with my mouth?”

She hacked the rabbit in half and flung the hot meat at him, then told herself to get her temper under control. He was trying to disconcert her, and she wouldn’t give him the pleasure of knowing he had succeeded.

“I am not a prude,” she said, sliding back into her seat. “I’m just not attracted to dogs.”

He froze, the steaming rabbit halfway to his mouth, and looked at her through long golden lashes. “Oh, yes you are,” he said. “I can smell it. Minx.”

“Don’t call me that!”

She tried to sound intimidating but it was hard to do while fighting back another blush at the thought that he could smell her arousal. She refused to admit that a violent monster was capable of making her feel desire. The very thought of it made her stomach turn.

“Then what should I call you?” he asked in an infuriatingly reasonable tone.

Damn. She’d handed him that one. What the hell was wrong with her? She pulled out her knife, not her dagger but her working knife, and began carving random designs into the spear to calm herself and give her hands something to do that didn’t involve killing the only werewolf she had managed to capture alive in five years. She could get him back to the sisters, alive. She owed them that much.

“You may call me Le Manteau Rouge.”

He paused mid-chew, fat shining on his lips, and his face went through a series of fascinating changes; confusion, shock, anger. He lowered the carcass, resting his forearms on his bent knees, and said, “You? You are the Red Cloak?” in tones of utter disbelief.

She sketched a seated bow. “At your service. Or did you not notice the blanket under which you slept?” she jerked her head toward the sled leaning against the wall, the one she’d built using her famous cloak.

He studied it for a long moment, then dragged his eyes back to her and said, “And you have the gall to call me a monster? You are a hypocrite.”

She pulled out her silver dagger and threw it before she had time to think or feel anything other than fury. How dare this murderous creature call her a monster? She felt her grandmother's blood hot on her hands again, hotter than the tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t even have time to regret throwing the knife.

But that didn’t matter, because he caught it. He caught it. By the handle. While she watched in shock, he flipped the dagger around, studied it, then saluted her with the blade and said, “Violent.”

“If I am violent it is your fault,” she said through clenched teeth. “Give me back the dagger.”

“Come and take it.”

“If I do, you will not leave this cave alive.”

He raised a brow at her and she heard his voice as clearly as if he had spoken. Violent.

By the blade, she dreamed about living a life without violence. She dreamed of being safe, of never having to pick up a gun or a knife, of sleeping in a bed in her own home, and waking to tend a garden in the sunshine. But those were not possibilities her father had left to her. She would never have that safe, warm life. The only safety she would know is the safety left when she was more violent than the monsters who lurked in the dark.

She closed her eyes and reminded herself that just because she shared her father’s blood, that didn’t mean she had to share his nature. When she chose violence it was careful, purposeful, and used for the good of others, not for her own pleasure.

She said, “My name is Alix.”

After a beat of silence, he replied, “My name is Cyrus.”

“I would say it is nice to meet you, but–”

“No need to start lying now.”

If he hadn’t been a monster, she might have smiled at him. He tore into the meat again, then picked up the dagger and tossed it back across the fire. She caught and sheathed it, then watched him finish his meal. When he was done, he tossed the bones into the fire, wiped his greasy fingers on the hem of his shirt, and shifted until he got comfortable.

He made her wait, seeing how long her patience would last before he finally started talking. “I am not a slave to the moon because I am not the same as the creatures you hunt.”

“You are a werewolf,” she said, emphasizing each word.

“Of course I am. I am a man who changes into a wolf. For someone who claims to know so much of my kind, you seem woefully uninformed.”

It was a struggle to force her jaw to unlock enough to say, “Enlighten me, then.”

“The creatures we killed last night are abominations. They have taken the gift and turned it into something evil.”

“A gift, is it?”

“Do not scoff. My people accept the gift to protect life, and to have strength for battle. We prepare and train for it so we can become servants of our people. Those,” he jerked his head toward the cave mouth, “take. They take the gift by force and the power of it twists them until they cannot balance man and wolf. Instead of being a partner with the magic, it rules them. They give themselves over to the power to satisfy their own desires.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “I have never heard more ridiculous nonsense in my life. Did you truly think this fairy story would convince me to do what? Trust you? Set you free? Werewolves are monsters,” she said, pointing at him. “They serve nothing but their hunger. But, by all means, save that charming story for the Sisters. I’m certain they will find it very entertaining.”

His jaw muscle worked a few times, as if he was chewing over the words he wanted to say until they were soft enough to swallow. Finally, he lay back on the stone floor and pillowed his head on his folded hands.

“When do we leave to see the Sisters?”

He took that response a little too well. He would likely change his tune when he understood who the Sisters were and what their mission was. “First light.”

“Waiting out the night, eh? Smart. If we are leaving so early, you had better get some sleep.”

She snorted. “Why? So you can attack me while I dream? I think not.”

He made a disgusted noise, and no other sound, which was answer enough. She certainly didn't intend to tell him that she rarely needed sleep. That was merely another unwelcome perk of being half vampire.

Firelight created fantastical shadow shapes on the cave ceiling. Cyrus lay on his back and watched them dance while listening to Alix breathe. She rarely shifted or changed position, and her breath rolled in and out in long, lazy swoops that spoke of relaxation. 

But no human should be relaxed when sharing a confined space with a werewolf. 

Which meant she either did not find him worth worrying about, or she was in excellent physical condition. If she was the Red Cloak, then it was likely both, but he wasn’t certain whether to believe her claim. The Red Cloak was one of the most renowned monster hunters in Europe and had killed more werewolves than anyone living, save perhaps himself. But she didn’t need to know that.

Tales of her deeds stretched across the continent, but which story was true: the child who killed a werewolf while visiting her grandmother, or the girl who was saved from a werewolf attack and trained by a hunter? One of a hundred other versions? Perhaps, before this was all over, he’d charm the true story out of her.

Of course, he’d never do that if he kept irritating her, but he couldn’t help himself. He had saved her life, and that of the priest, but she refused to see the truth of his intentions. She decided he was a monster, and nothing he could say would change her mind. Under other circumstances, and with a bit of time, he might have tried to slip past her guard and challenge her assumptions, but Alix had an impenetrable shield around her emotions. Her control only slipped during moments of anger or embarrassment, and nothing seemed to irritate her more than a few sensual suggestions. 

Who could have guessed that sex was the only chink in the Red Cloak's armor?

Defenseless against the woman who was holding him hostage, and with no leverage to bargain or bribe her with, sex may be the only weapon at his disposal. If so, he would use it. And he could not even lie to himself and say he wouldn’t enjoy it.

Of course, his chance of using that weapon was slim; he had smelled her desire, like a potent drug thickening the air, but her fury was far stronger. If she lost control of herself, it wouldn’t end with her riding him like a newly broken horse… it would end with him dead.

And he found that, despite the chains, the threats, the insults, and her plan to turn him over to what she believed was a fate worse than death… he had no similar desire to kill her. She had rescued him when she thought him human, did her best to clean and heal him, and given him food and water when she would rather have given him the sharp end of her knife.

If he could not gain his freedom by force of arms, charm, or seduction, perhaps the best option was to go along with her plan. She didn’t believe the truth about who and what he was, and he could not convince her, but she’d learn the truth after they arrived at the convent. And by then, it would be too late. He fell asleep smiling, imagining the look on her face when she discovered that the very people she expected to be his downfall were, in fact, his employers.

Alix was as good as her word. When the first rays of sunlight hit the canopy, she cleared the hasty camp. He woke to the sounds of her humming and watched her move gracefully about the space, always aware of his position. No matter where she stood or what task she was engaged in, she always had the perfect angle to stop him if he fled or attacked.

The cave looked as if no one had ever stepped inside when she was done, though the tracks of the travois may ruin the illusion. Alix picked up the device and laid it on the ground next to him, then gestured at the famous red cloak tied between thick saplings.

“Get on,” she said.

“Why not unchain me? I will walk.”

She snorted. “No, you will run. Or attack me. I care for neither option, so get on.”

Alix was tall enough, perhaps six or eight inches above five feet, and made of lean, corded muscle, but he was at least a head taller than her, and twice as wide.

“I appreciate your determination,” he said, “but you won’t get as far as you think carrying me on that. I am heavier than I look.”

She raised one dark, patronizing eyebrow. “I know how heavy you are. Who do you think carried your unconscious carcass in here?”

No one could say he hadn’t tried. With a sigh, Cyrus shifted his weight until he sat in the middle of the cloak. The wool was fine, both thick and soft, and edged with swirling embroidery of vines and leaves. It would be a shame to ruin such fabric.

He couldn’t stop himself from trying one last time. “My bodyweight will rip your lovely cloak.”

“Let me worry about that,” she said, positioning herself between the carrying handles.

He shrugged and prepared himself to fall off, or fall through, but she lifted him with no noticeable effort and dragged him out of the cave and into the forest. He stayed on high alert for several minutes, but she never dropped him, never wavered, and never even broke a sweat.

After half an hour, he simply laid back and enjoyed the ride. Canopy passed overhead in a steady, soothing flow; shifting leaves and reaching branches punctuated by patches of blue sky and the occasional bird or squirrel. Even the rhythmic footsteps and the steady drag of the sled skids on the dirt road were relaxing.

Last night, he had been weak enough to doubt his ability to do more than bargain with his captor, but as he breathed the clean air, strength and vitality flowed back into his body. The magic had finished cleaning his blood, destroying the last of the wolfsbane while he slept. He could break the chains now, if he chose. But the thin silver made his captor feel safe, and he was getting a free ride in the bargain, so Cyrus lay back with his hands behind his head and dozed.

At least, until she dropped him. He struck the ground with a yelp and sat up to find himself in a dirt clearing off the road, of the kind travelers used to camp or stop for a meal. He swallowed back a curse, replaced the gruff tone he wanted to use with one guaranteed to annoy her, and said brightly, “Time for lunch, is it? I can catch something for us if you’d like to just—” he raised his wrists and jingled the chain enticingly.

She tossed him the waterskin, hard and fast enough that it would have hit him in the face had he been a normal man.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“We won’t eat again until we reach the convent,” she said, stretching her arms up and behind her back and groaning as she worked the soreness out of her muscles. The motion pulled her shirt tight across her chest, outlining her breasts against the straining fabric. She groaned in pleasure and the darkly sensual sound made him flinch in surprise, spilling water down his chin. He cursed and wiped the drops, then tossed her the skin. 

Cyrus didn’t fix the fit of his pants until she turned away. It hadn’t been so long since he’d had intimate company that a simple groan should have made him hard, yet here he was, trying to hide the uncomfortable bulge in his pants. That was almost more infuriating than her insults.

A wagon pulled by a donkey trundled by, creaking rhythmically, driven by a bearded elfin farmer with a floppy cap on his head. His pointed ears peeked out of a cloud of curly white hair, and he turned curious eyes on them as he passed.

A human boy of perhaps ten years in the back, wielding a leafy branch to protect the produce from birds. He smiled and waved, showing a pair of dimples.

“Why not ask for a ride?” Cyrus suggested as the wagon passed. “It would save you the trouble of hauling me.”

“I don’t want your stink to scare that poor donkey.”

“Or you don’t want to answer questions about why you have an innocent man shackled.”

“The day I fear a farmer is the day you can put me in the grave.”

Cyrus snorted. “Only a fool doesn’t fear a farmer. They are tough, smart, practical, and resilient people. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be farmers long.”

“I never fear smart people,” she said as she slung the water skin over her neck and shoulder and positioned it diagonally across her back. “I fear cruelty and stupidity. Be glad you are not stupid, or you’d be dead.”

She positioned herself, lifted the sled, and dragged him back out onto the road. They bumped along for another quarter of an hour when the report of gunfire echoed through the woods and sent the birds in the canopy scrambling for safety.

“Bandits,” Alix said.

The farmer’s wagon was the only traffic they had seen on this road for hours. Bandits didn’t always attack their victims, but if the farmer or the boy were injured, he and Alix were too far away to help.

Alix adjusted her grip on the handles of the sled and started running. What had been a comfortable and lazy ride turned into a challenge. Cyrus braced his feet against the bottom crosspiece of the travois and called, “Release me! I can help!”

“Now is not the time, wolf.”

Why was she so damnably obstinate? “You can replace my bonds when they’re safe. I swear it.”

“As if I would trust the word of a werewolf?”

“Then leave me and run faster. I will not move until you return.”

“Shut up,” she grunted. 

Alix lowered her head and sprinted, faster than any human should have been capable of, especially when pulling over two hundred pounds. For a moment Cyrus considered rolling off the sled so she could run without a burden, but he knew she would only turn around for him.

He could break the chains now and reach the farmer’s wagon in seconds but, if he did, she would think he was trying to escape and fight him. Then no one would help the farmer. Making the run easy for her was the only answer that made sense.

She was panting hard when they pulled around a bend and jerked to a stop that almost flung Cyrus from the sled.

“Stay here,” Alix ordered, then dropped the handles and dashed forward.

Cyrus hit the ground with a grunt, then sat up and swung his legs around. Three men held the cart at gunpoint; one held the farmer and boy at gunpoint as the farmer dug into his pockets for coin. Another watched the road for incoming travelers, and the last man stood in the wagon bed, filling a large burlap sack with vegetables.

“Please, good sirs,” the farmer begged, “those vegetables are our only source of income.”

“You’ll shut up if you know what’s good for you,” the bandit ordered, poking the farmer in his stomach with the barrel of the gun.

They were so focused on their tasks that they did not notice Alix until it was too late. 

The man in the wagon looked up as she blurred toward him. “What–” he blurted, then fought to dig his gun out of his pants, but the weapon stuck on his belt and by the time he raised it to aim at the running woman, she was upon him.

Alix jerked to the side, and the motion was so fast it was like watching a magic trick. One moment she was in the center of the road, and the next she was three feet to the right. There was no in-between moment where she took the two steps required to put her there. Cyrus had seen werewolves move that fast, but never a human.

The bandit’s shot went wide, and the sound made the man guarding the road spin around, bringing his weapon to bear. But he was too late to save his compatriot. Alix leaped up into the bed of the wagon, pushed the gun barrel toward the sky as the bandit pulled the trigger a second time, and buried her knife at an angle under his breastbone. She turned, dragging the body with her as a shield between herself and the remaining bandits.

The farmer and his boy were veterans of the road, and hit the ground as soon as the first shot was fired. Cyrus hoped that kept them out of danger. As Alix moved, dragging the dead body with her, she stripped the pistol from his limp hand, sighted over his shoulder, and fired on the bandit holding the travelers hostage. They flinched as the man hit the ground in front of them with a dull thud, legs bending the wrong way.

“Luc!” The last bandit yelled. He began circling the wagon, gun trained on Alix as he squeezed off careful shots. The dead man’s body jerked from the impact of each bullet, but Alix held him upright with the knife planted in his chest and waited for her shot.

She was quick, cold, and accurate; as soon as the bandit gave her an opening, she fire. Her bullet struck the center of his forehead with a wet crunch. He stood for a moment on the road, eyes wide in surprise as a dribble of blood trailed between his eyes and down the side of his nose. As soon as his body realized his head was no longer working, his legs crumpled, and he collapsed to the dirt like a bird struck with a stone.

Alix tossed the body of the dead man out of the wagon in disgust, wiped the blade clean on her pant leg, and sheathed it before hopping down. She checked the farmer and boy for injuries, but the farmer flinched away from her as if she hadn’t just saved his life. He was not ungrateful, only scared. 

Cyrus understood why they feared her. Alix was a magnificent predator; fast, efficient, and lethal. But those skills did not save her from emotion. She stiffened in response to their fear, and the corners of her eyes tightened in a manner that spoke of old pain, long ago accepted and endured.

The farmer pulled a few coins from his pocket and offered them to her with a shaking hand. She refused the money with a gentle smile and shake of her head, then dragged the dead bodies into the brush as the travelers climbed back into their cart.

“Take this,” Alix called, tossing the farmer one of the bandit’s pistols.

He caught it with characteristic elfin grace, but set the weapon carefully away from himself on the bench, his face twitching with disgust. But the man pulled himself together enough to nod his thanks before flicking the reins. Alix grabbed a handful of dirt, rubbed it between her palms to clean most of the blood, then brushed it off on her pants as she strode back toward him.

Her long, dark braid swung behind her, and her clothing clung to the curves of her body in a rather distracting manner. Her cheeks were pink from exertion, and her amber eyes seemed to glow. She was both dangerous and compelling as hell, drawing his eye with irresistible force. At least, until she opened her mouth.

“The good boy knows how to stay,” she said, bending forward to put her hands on her knees as if talking to a dog. “Do you want a treat, good boy?”

“You might want to be a bit nicer to me, minx,” he warned.

“Really? Why is that?”

“Because you’ve been shot, and I’m the only one left to help you.”

Alix looked down at her torso. Two holes marred the dark fabric of her shirt, which was already wet and clinging to her skin; one was high on her chest, below her left collarbone, and the other was low on her right side, just above the hollow of her hipbone.

The bullets must have traveled through the dead body and passed into her. “Shit,” she said, then turned and asked over her shoulder, “Are there exit wounds?”

“I will tell you that on one condition.”

“The condition is that I let you live.”

“The condition,” Cyrus said, “is that you let me treat your wounds.”

She snorted and eyed their relative positions. “You are in no position to be setting conditions.”

“And you’re in no position to turn them down, unless you would prefer bleeding to death.”

Alix would not bleed to death, but she couldn’t tell him that. He might be rare as a werewolf with some self-control, but even he wouldn’t guess that a half-vampire was roaming about the wilds of France, saving farmers from bandits and killing the monsters that preyed on mortals. If she wanted to protect her anonymity and stay alive, she must protect that secret at all costs.

Vampires were even more feared and hated than werewolves, and when the time came for pitchforks and torches, no one would care that she was only half. And keeping her secret would be impossible if Cyrus got too close for too long.

“I’ll wait for the next traveler,” she said.

“That wagon was the only other traffic we have seen since this morning. How long do you think you have?”

“Fine,” she said, “Fine. We are agreed, you may treat them. Are there exit wounds?”

“No.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. That meant he would have to remove the bullets. Alix might have superhuman healing abilities, but she wasn’t immortal. Leaving a bullet inside one’s body was never a good idea if it could be helped. And while the pain was manageable now, that would change quickly when he started digging about inside of her… particularly if he wasn’t gentle.

She would also be wounded, vulnerable prey to his werewolf senses, and putting herself in that position would be foolishness of the worst sort. And Alix was no fool.

“Get on the sled,” she said as she walked around to position herself between the pull bars.

“You shouldn’t be pulling–”

“Shut up and get on the sled! God’s breath, you are contrary. I’ll pull you to somewhere safer for this farce of a surgery.”

“If you unshackle me, I can walk there.”

“That was not part of the arrangement.”

He gritted his teeth and scooted back onto the cloak, bracing his feet against the crossbar at the bottom. She set her shoulders, ignored the pain, and pulled.

Clean, boiling water was required for surgery, and if she remembered correctly, a stream flowed nearby. An infection could not kill her, but her body took longer to heal from infections than it did from wounds. Being laid up with a fever for several hours or, heaven forbid, several days, was not a luxury she could afford.

“We are close to water,” the wolf said.

“Where do you think I am dragging your heavy carcass?”

A stream, perhaps four feet wide, tumbled down a pair of mossy banks beneath a huge weeping willow. There was a flat spot close to the roots of the tree, so Alix dragged the sled there, dropped it with a satisfying thud, opened her pack, and pulled out supplies.

Thanks to her father’s immortal blood, Alix healed several times faster than humans, elves, or dwarves. The recent werewolf bite on her forearm had healed in less than an hour. And a few hundred years of life had taught her to ignore pain when it could be ignored, and cope with it when it could not. As a result, she rarely carried medical supplies, and certainly not the kind needed to fish the bullets out of her muscles.

Which meant that this would hurt.

Cyrus watched her grab dry twigs and leaves, fill her travel pot with water from the creek, and start a small fire. He said in a very sensible tone, “I could help, you know.”

Alix created a sort of tripod with three oblong river rocks and balanced the pot atop them over the flames. “What happened in the last two days to make you think I trust you?”

“Have I done anything to earn your distrust?”

“You have done nothing to earn my trust,” she countered.

“How can I, when you have me tied up like a common criminal?”

“Why do you care to earn it?”

He threw his hands in the air, or tried to, but since they were still chained with silver, the gesture looked ridiculous. “Perhaps I don’t want to see you die.”

“Doubtful.”

“You agreed to let me treat your wounds.”

“So I did,” she said as she peeled a springy green twig, then split it up the middle, stopping about an inch from the end. “But I never said how much.”

He growled; actually growled, and not in a frustrated human way, but in an angry werewolf way. “Do you want to die?”

Alix stuffed a smaller piece of wood between the tongs she’d just cut, then bound the end and the crosspiece with a bit of twine. The result was a serviceable pair of tweezers that, she hoped, were long enough to reach the bullets. These makeshift tweezers had almost no grip compared to their metal counterparts but were better than using her fingers, so they would have to do. After a quick sanitization in the boiling water, they were ready to use.

“You made a promise, minx,” Cyrus said.

“You can bind the wounds after I dig the bullets out,” she told him, then stood and wiggled out of her pants.

He made a choking noise. “Why are you taking off your trousers?”

“Because I only have one pair, and I don’t want to bleed all over them. Be quiet and let me focus.”

“You agreed to let me treat your wounds, not lie on my back while you further injure yourself. What about keeping your word?”

“I am keeping it,” she said as she lay back, using her pack as a backrest so she had the proper view of the small entrance wound just above and inside her hip bone. “I said I would let you treat my wounds. I never said how. It’s not my fault if you are terrible at negotiating. Next time, make clearer expectations.”

Cyrus made more growling sounds, but she ignored him and began pressing on the flesh around the wound, hoping to feel a lump somewhere beneath. It hurt, but after a moment, something hard and pea-sized shifted an inch or so beneath her skin. That wasn’t as bad as she had expected. The bullet must have lost quite a bit of velocity before it hit her.

Alix positioned herself, readied the tweezers, double-checked the location of the bullet, and plunged the tip into the bullet hole.

She bared her teeth against the pain and tried to pinch the ball between the tips of the makeshift tweezers. There it was. She had it. Fresh blood oozed from the wound, making it hard to see, but she ignored that and focused on the feeling, letting the pain make her senses sharp. The metal was misshapen from its journey through a body and a half, and fit awkwardly between the carved wood. But she had it. She just had to pull–the bullet slipped to the side. She lost it.

Growling in frustration, Alix wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her forearm, dabbed away the blood with a clean cloth, and readied herself to try again. The effort was making her dizzy, and every time she gripped the bullet, it slipped from between the smooth wooden ends of the tweezers.

She fell back against the pack and pulled in deep breaths, promising herself never to travel without standard medical equipment again.

“Alix,” Cyrus said in a low, persuasive voice. “Let me help you. You can hold one of those silver daggers to my throat if you like, but this is pure stupidity.”

She eyed the wolf. He squatted where she had dropped the sled with his elbows on his knees, as if he was just waiting for an excuse to break the chains and lunge. If he got close enough to extract the bullet, he’d also be close enough to kill her. He knew she was taking him to the Sisters of St. Christopher. This would be the perfect opportunity to save himself by killing her.

Alix rolled onto her side, unsheathed a dagger, set it on the ground within easy reach, and said, “You’ll stay where you are if you want to live long enough to see the next sunrise.”

The wolf swore, muttering something about incompetent idiots, but she ignored him and readied herself for another attempt. She could do this. Once the tweezers were sanitized with boiling water again, she dried them and started digging. Blood oozed and tissue swelled as her body attempted to protect itself from invasion. The muscle fibers healed so fast that she had to tear them to make the bullet accessible, but finding it was getting harder. Every movement made the pain burn hotter. Her vision swam and her breath came in great gasps as her body tried to shut down to heal.

“Son of a bitch,” Cyrus growled.

Then he lept.

He was faster than he should have been, far faster than she expected. Though the silver didn’t seem to hurt him, it should have suppressed the supernatural speed and strength that resulted from his magical connection to the wolf. Instead, he landed on her before she could raise the knife, sitting on her thighs and trapping her legs with his own as both big hands pressed her shoulders down.

“Your leg is spasming,” he said, in the voice an angry father might use with a willful child. “It is causing your stomach muscles to clench and shift. That’s why you keep losing the bullet. Be still and I will remove it.”

Alix had been too groggy to react before he sprung, but she was fast enough to jerk the silver dagger up and jab the tip into his skin just below his breastbone. It sank in a quarter of an inch, but he did not flinch.

Instead, he leaned down, forcing the blade further in, and said, “You can stab me if you like, but I am going to remove these bullets.”

Then he gripped her shirt in both hands and tore the fabric to expose the wound below her collarbone. A simple twist of her arm could kill him, but the pulse beating in the hollow of his throat was strangely compelling, and she found herself staring inexplicably at the line of his jaw where the muscle tightened as he concentrated. He still stank of wolf, but also grass and sharp sweat, and the way his thighs flexed against her legs was..distracting.

Cyrus frowned as he prodded the edges of the bullet hole with his fingertips. She winced and turned the blade in warning, but he ignored the pain, licked his full lips, and fastened his mouth over the wound.

Alix froze in shock. She didn't expect the wolf to try sucking her blood. His hair spilled across her bare neck and shoulder, silky and cool. But his mouth was hot and the fresh beard growth on his chin scratched as he pressed down on the edges of the wound with his fingers and drew on it with a deep sucking motion of his lips and tongue.

In an insane moment of tingling pleasure mixed with pain, Alix’s back arched, and the bullet popped free. Cyrus leaned back with the metal clamped between his white teeth, her blood on his lips and chin. A single drop slid down the column of his throat and into the hollow beneath his shirt.

Alix watched, transfixed, as he spat the metal into the dirt, casually knocked the dagger from her grip, and shifted to get a look at the wound on her hip. The dagger fell from her fingers as if in slow motion. She ought to catch it, but couldn’t think of why.

Cyrus spat and wiped her blood from his lips with the back of his hand as he examined the second injury. “You’ve damaged yourself even worse than if you’d just left the bullet inside.”

“I had to hurry or the skin would have healed over the bullet,” she murmured.

His head snapped up, eyes locking on her face. They were very green, his eyes, like sunlight on grass, surrounded by long golden lashes. Men always had long lashes, which was ridiculously unfair. Weren’t women supposed to be the prettier sex? What right did this wolf have to be so unfairly beautiful?

Cyrus swore, and even the sound of his voice was attractive. “You’re going into shock,” he said, then swiped her dagger off the ground and plunged the tip into the boiling water. “I need to be fast. I’ll trap your leg, but try not to move.”

Before she could respond, there was a burning pain in her hip. She groaned through gritted teeth and fought to stay still despite feeling as if she was sinking into deep, warm water.

“There,” he grunted, holding something small and bloody between his fingers for a moment before tossing it away in disgust.

Her head rolled back, too heavy to lift, as her body took over and cannibalized all of her energy to heal itself. She was powerless to stop it or protect herself from the werewolf looming over her. His angry face was probably the last thing she would ever see.

She heard swearing, a bright metallic snapping sound, and nothing else.

She fainted.

Cyrus swore, set his shoulders against the shackles, and pulled. His muscles strained against the silver alloy and the metal cut into the skin of his wrists, but he ignored the pain and bore down. A moment later, the chain gave way with a snap, quickly followed by the shackles on his ankles.

He was free. He could lope into the woods and never worry about being chained, again…so long as he was willing to leave the unconscious woman on the ground, bleeding and alone by the stream.

She had held him hostage, was foul-mouthed, stubborn, prejudiced, and suspicious. She also intended to turn him over for experimentation.

Leaving her would be the smart thing to do.

But she’d also thrown herself into danger to help strangers, and killed two werewolves to save a priest. She had cared for him when she thought him a man and fed him even when she claimed she would rather have let him starve. No matter how he felt about her, she deserved to live.

Even if that meant she would only try to hunt him down, again.

With a resigned sigh over his own idiocy, Cyrus bound her wounds in strips of the cleanest cloth he could find, wrapped her in the cloak, and used a fallen log to elevate her feet. Moving her wasn’t a good idea until she recovered from the shock… if she recovered.

But as he examined her, he realized she hadn’t lost much blood, her wounds were shallow, and her heartbeat was strong. Why had she gone into shock in the first place? Perhaps her body was reacting to something he did not understand or could not see.

That left him two choices: he could either monitor her and hope she recovered on her own, or risk moving her to find help. Given everything he had seen her do, he doubted she was purely human, and that meant human treatments may not do her any good.

Either way, he could do nothing for her by the bank of a stream. If he remembered correctly, the convent wasn’t that far away, so Cyrus packed her bag, loosened the straps to slide in on over his shoulders, and lifted her limp body. Time to find help.

Unlike humans, who used to rely on the sun and stars and now relied on maps and compasses, Cyrus had an infallible sense of direction. He oriented himself toward the convent, looked into the pale, clammy face of the woman who would have preferred him dead, and ran, calling on his wolf for speed.

He was fast, but the convent was nearly twenty miles away if he remembered correctly, and he wasn’t certain she would last the two hours he needed to cover that distance. He could have made it in half that time as a wolf, but dragging Alix on the sled would have bounced her about dangerously. She was already as heavy and limp as a dead body and, though she was still breathing, her heartbeat was far too slow.

How had she gone from being so violently alive to the edge of death in a matter of minutes? When he had seen her proud, fierce expression melt into dazed fear, his stomach sank with sick fear. It was like watching a tiger prowl back and forth in a small cage at the zoo instead of slinking through the jungle. Whether or not one liked the tiger, imprisoning it felt wrong. And it was partly his fault.

If he had stepped in during the fight, he might have saved her. Instead, his poor judgment resulted in another failure, another person hurt because he made the wrong call, and struck the wrong balance between man’s logic and wolf’s instincts.

That was why he avoided people, as a rule. He could not stop himself from trying to help, but protecting people came with heavy consequences. and every time he failed or made a bad call it was catastrophic. Visions of his village, of his brother’s broken body, flashed across his mind like a lightning bolt, nearly making him stumble over an exposed tree root.

For such an old wound, the memory was still painfully tender, and that made it dangerous. Thinking about it now could injure them both, so he pushed it out of his mind, double-checked his patient’s condition, and pushed himself faster. Her olive skin had gone a sickly shade of gray that made his stomach muscles clench.

Why he should care about keeping this woman alive didn’t bear examining, not when keeping himself breathing steadily required all of his concentration.

Heart pounding heart, lungs sawing, Cyrus covered the miles in a blur of passing trees and shocked travelers who weren’t quite certain what they had just seen. Alix was heavier than she looked, and his muscles burned as he pushed them to the edge of exertion.

The winding forest path forked, and Cyrus followed it to the right, where it widened and slowly became busier. Wagon ruts cut deep by years of heavy loads made for dangerous obstacles and soon forced him to slow enough that his fellow travelers recognized what passed them on the side of the road.

Sweat ran from his forehead in rivulets, and calls of, “Do you need help?” followed him around nearly every bend. If they did not reach the convent soon, he was going to need a break, and from the look of death on Alix’s face, she didn’t have time to spare. If the woman died on him after all of this trouble, he would kill her.

At last, the sound of bells echoing through the forest made his heart give a painful lurch of relief. He put his head down and pushed himself for whatever speed he had left. The walls of the convent of The Sisters of St. Christopher came into view through the trees, gray stone weathered by time and covered with moss and clinging vines.

He stumbled to a stop before the old double door and kicked the wood with his boot, panting and using his shoulder to rub the stinging sweat out of his eyes. A moment later a panel slid open and the beatific face of a nun appeared. Her eyes widened as she looked at Cyrus, then at the burden in his arms, and slid the panel closed with a snap.

Several clicking and clinking sounds came muffled through the door before it swung open and a woman in a brown habit said, “Come, come, bring her this way.”

He followed her through a courtyard, past a flock of chickens scratching about in the dirt, and toward the longest of the buildings. To an unsuspecting eye, this convent looked like every other: tidy, relatively poor, and full of women doing the chores of daily life between prayers.

Only, the Sisters of St. Christopher were anything but ordinary, and they certainly weren’t poor. A series of very wealthy, very secretive benefactors had a distinct interest in funding research of the supernatural, and no one was better or more secretive than the Sisters. They specialized in the monsters of Western Europe, with particular emphasis on one of the most dangerous and prolific: werewolves.

This meant that the simple-looking infirmary they entered was outfitted as well as any hospital in Europe. Several older, more experienced nuns who acted as nurses, saw to their patients at the back of the building where large windows let in light and fresh air.

“Sister Mary Thérèse!” his guide called, “It’s Alix!”

A mature woman, perhaps somewhere in her mid-seventies, appeared from the back room wiping her hands on the skirt of the white apron that covered most of her habit. Her iron-gray hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and she walked with all the grace of a falling tree.

“Put her down, here, carefully,” she ordered.

He slid Alix onto the table, then flexed his arms to force blood back into his hands. Sister Mary Thérèse didn’t give him a second glance. She began her examination, pressing her fingers against the pulse beneath the corner of Alix’s jaw and asking in a deep, businesslike voice,

“Who are you?”

“Cyrus. The Mother–”

She cut him off by raising one hand and saying, “That’s enough, I know who you are. What happened to her?”

Cyrus explained the events of the afternoon.

The Sister snorted in disgust, as if mere bullets should not have caused such a response. “She captured you, you say?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“How long were you together before this robbery?”

“Two nights.”

“Did she sleep during that time?”

“I assume she must have.”

“Did you witness her sleep?”

He thought about it. “No, I suppose not. But I was busy healing.”

“From?”

“A knife wound.”

“Silver?”

“Yes, coated in Aconite.”

She chuckled, which did not seem like a normal response, and asked, “Did Alix do that to you?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. And after she was wounded, what did you do?”

“I removed the bullets and treated the wounds.”

One gray brow raised. “How did you remove them?”

His cheeks heated. “I removed one with a makeshift pair of wooden tweezers, and I–sucked the other one out.”

Her hands stilled, and she turned to regard him with an impassive face that made him more nervous than her anger or incredulity might have.

“Did you just say, sucked it out?”

“It was very shallow,” he said in his own defense. “And the tweezers were too large, they would have made the hole bigger.”

“Do you have these tweezers?”

Relieved not to be discussing the sucking of bullets, he opened the pack, pulled out the tweezers Alix had crafted, and handed them to her. She turned them over in her hand, smelled the wood, and picked at it with one clean fingernail.

Cyrus interrupted her examination of the crude tool and said, “Shouldn’t you be helping her?”

“They are rather large but this isn’t bad work for an emergency,” the nun said, then stopped and looked up at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Shouldn’t you be helping her?”

“Oh, she will be fine.”

“What do you mean she will be fine? She’s in shock, she should have been dead an hour ago!”

Sister Mary Thérèse paused and eyed him. “I see. Well, if Alix has not seen fit to explain, it is certainly not my place to do it, for her. Come along.”

The sister turned to lead him out of the infirmary, but he folded his arms and planted his feet. He wasn’t leaving until someone did something. He hadn’t just run the woman twenty miles to watch her die while help stood by and did nothing. “Since when are the Sisters so unmerciful to the wounded?”

Mary Thérèse turned on him slowly. “Pardon me?”

“You have done nothing to help her, and she is in shock. By the moon, simply look at her skin!”

She raised a single eyebrow and put her hands on her ample hips. “Are you questioning my ability to do my job?”

“No, but I–”

“Alix will be fine. I have known and treated her for years. You can trust me in this.”

When Cyrus still didn’t move, she rolled her eyes and said, “Mary Sofia, will you watch over Alix, please?”

A stocky nun with red hair and round cheeks left her patient sitting up and eating in the back of the infirmary and hurried to the front. “Of course, of course,” she said, flapping her hands at them. “I will watch over her.”

Cyrus followed Sister Mary Thérèse from the infirmary knowing there was nothing else he could do but still feeling reluctant to leave.

Mary Thérèse gave him a sly look as they crossed the courtyard. “So, Alix captured you, in a manner of speaking, eh? What was this manner?”

“She found me healing,” he admitted. “The fight was closer than it should have been.”

“You said she cut you.”

“Aye, with a poisoned blade.”

“She always was a clever girl. Well,” she leaned toward him and said in a conspiratorial tone, “don’t tell anyone else she snapped you up so easily, or it will ruin your reputation.”

He snorted. Being poisoned by both silver and wolfsbane would have killed other werewolves, but she already knew that, so he said, “I haven’t got a reputation worth protecting, Sister.”

She patted his arm and made a tsking noise. “That is probably best, in your line of work. I take it Alix does not know who you are? No, of course not, or she would not have attacked you. Then again,” she tilted her head to the side as she reconsidered. “Perhaps she would, at that.”

The second building they entered was as plain and spartan as the infirmary, but equally well-made and appointed. Sister Mary Thérèse led him to the guest wing and unlocked a door. A bed, table, and chair were the only furniture in the room, and if one were to give a cursory glance at the furnishings, one would think them as humble as they appeared. But the beds were solidly made of good quality wood, the mattresses were stuffed and well-sprung, and the wool blankets were of the finest quality, soft and supple.

Most convents took in travelers if they attended service and helped with chores, relying on their help and donations to supplement the convent’s income. But the Sisters of St. Christopher had no such needs, and their wealth hid in plain sight.

“You can stay here until Mother Superior calls for you. We will bring in supper. In the meantime, try to get some rest. I have a feeling you will need it.”

Cyrus was far too big for the bed, but he climbed into it, anyway, and snuggled as deep beneath the blanket as he could manage while keeping his feet covered. His head sank into the feather pillow like a warm embrace, and he let out a long, relaxing sigh before taking stock of the situation. He was safely in the convent, which had been his destination when he’d smelled the hunting werewolves in the forest and tried to play the hero. If he had been smarter, he might have crept up and monitored the situation before jumping in, but when he heard the father screaming, he had simply shifted and charged toward the fight.

He’d gotten what he deserved for his lack of judgment; a poisoned cut he wouldn’t soon forget. His muscles were still sore and hungry for the oxygen needed to recover from the strain of his run, which meant at least some aconite was still in his bloodstream. Sleep in a comfortable bed was exactly what he needed to finish healing, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw Alix laying in the infirmary with pale, waxy skin.

Sleep did not come easily, especially when he remembered the taste of her blood; a little too sweet and thin to be strictly human.

What was she?

“Pay them no mind, my love,” Maman said as she crouched and brushed Alix’s hair out of her eyes. It had come loose from her braids again and hung in long strands outside the careful confines of her red hood. “Country folk are superstitious, that’s all.”

“But why are they only superstish–superstitious about me?”

Maman made sure the hood of Alix’s cloak still shaded her face from the sun, then took her hand and resumed their walk through the village. “People fear things they do not understand, and they have never met someone who must always wear a hood.”

“Everybody gets sunburned, sometimes,” Alix muttered, glancing back over her shoulder at the angry woman who had kicked her and Maman out of the shop.

“That is true,” Maman agreed. “But not everyone gets sunburned so easily as you do, or as badly.”

Alix sighed and her stomach growled. “Will I grow out of it, as I grew out of my milk teeth?”

“Maybe. Some people do grow out of such things. Did you know my hair was as yellow as a dandelion when I was your age?”

Alix considered the wealth of Maman’s dark hair, braided down her back past her waist, and decided that the yellow hair was just another story she told to make her daughter feel better. It didn’t work, but she would never tell Maman that.

“Maybe if you let me stay home,” Alix said, repeating the same argument they had just that morning, “the people would let you shop in the village. And then we wouldn’t be so hungry all the time.”

Maman did not answer.

Alix jerked upright with a start, hands flashing to the small of her back, but her blades were gone. Instead, she felt a thick bandage of some sort. Her eyes flew around the room as she rolled into a defensive crouch, prepared to spring in any direction.

“There you are, my girl. I wondered how long you would sleep. How do you feel?”

The familiar, low, husky voice had the same calming effect as a shot of whiskey. Alix’s muscles relaxed, and she turned to see Sister Mary Thérèse standing from a nearby chair, a smile in her eyes if not on her face.

She was at the convent? How?

“Groggy,” Alix said. She swung her legs out and sat on the edge of the bed. “And confused.”

“Shall I have a bit of blood brought in for you?”

“No need. How did I get here?”

Sister Mary Thérèse smiled and hooked a thumb in the direction of the door. “That wolf carried you in. At a run, no less.”

Alix blinked, startled. With a frown, she thought back over the past day, swimming through a fog of sleepy memories. One hit her hard enough to make her teeth clench: Cyrus leaning over her with a bullet between his teeth and her blood on his lips and chin. He brought her here?

“Why?”

“He was concerned for you,” the Sister said, amusement roughening the edges of her voice.

“I doubt that.”

“I do not. Here, let me look at you.” Sister Mary Thérèse examined her eyes, her gums, and checked her pulse. “You should have some blood.”

“I don’t want any.”

“Oh yes, you do. It will make you feel better.”

“Sister–”

“And what were you thinking, anyway, to go so long without proper food and sleep? It is no wonder your body shut down. You are only lucky that wolf has a conscience.”

What had Alix been thinking? That staying alive and keeping the unusual wolf contained was worth losing a few nights of sleep she didn’t need. Of course, she had not factored in the intensity of the fight and the grief of failing Père Henri, nor being shot. She had only eaten enough during their stay in the cave to keep the worst of the hunger at bay because she did not trust leaving the wolf alone long enough to hunt for anything bigger than rabbits.

“Sister Mary Thomas?” Mary Thérèse called.

A short, plump woman with salt and pepper hair popped her head above the edge of the bed she had been making. “Yes, Sister?”

“Will you fetch Alix a cup of goat’s blood? She is still feeling poorly.”

Alix sighed and lay back on the bed. It was useless to argue with Mary Thérèse.

“We will need the fresh meat anyway, now that the wolf is here,” the older woman reasoned. That was true. They could not study the creature if he starved to death. Still, it was impossible to picture him carrying her here, to the one place he should want to avoid at all costs. Especially not when he could have used her death to free himself.

The sisters were indirectly responsible for the death of more werewolves than almost any other society in Europe, and Alix was their most capable blade. He would be a fool to come here, and an even bigger fool to bring her willingly.

“How did you manage to contain him?” Alix asked. Cyrus was a large man and an even bigger werewolf. The Sisters of St. Christopher had many ingenious gadgets, but combat was not their specialty.

“Oh, nothing could be simpler,” Sister Mary Thérèse said. “I simply asked him to stay.”

Alix glared at the old woman, unsure whether or not she was being teased. But the scent of fresh blood suddenly lit up the room like a lightning strike, and Alix’s head spun with desire. 

She hated the smell, hated the way it made her mouth water and her throat feel like it had been dry for a thousand years. More than anything else, she hated the way it made her feel like a monster. So, she rarely drank blood, preferring instead to subsist on human food, which worked well enough, unless she had pushed herself to the limit of her endurance for too long.

Not enough rest, too much healing, too long without sleep, and then the bullet wounds had pushed her over the edge and her body had shut down to recover. It was no wonder she felt weak, hollow, and shaky. She should have known better, but it had been a long, long time since so many extraordinary things happened all at once.

Sister Mary Thomas offered her a shy little smile as she handed her a stout wooden mug, then retreated.

“Drink up, girl,” Sister Mary Thérèse said. 

She persisted in calling Alix ‘girl’ despite being younger than her patient by a couple of hundred years. But it was nice to feel looked after and fussed over, so Alix pressed the cup to her lips.

The blood made every one of her senses come to life with painful clarity; the light was too bright, almost burning, and each sound might as well have been screamed in her ears. Even the scents in the room–lavender, lye, wood oil, beeswax, cotton, chicken shit tracked in by a careless boot–were almost overpowering. 

But the dull headache disappeared, the soreness drained away from her muscles, and she felt as if she had slept for three days.

“There we are, right as rain,” Sister Mary Thérèse said when Alix lowered the mug. “Your color is back to normal already. Now, your pack and what supplies the wolf rescued are on that bed, just there. Get yourself cleaned up. Mother Superior will call for you before long. You know where the baths are.”

Of course she did. Alix had been using the bathhouse of the Sisters of St. Christopher’s Convent since they were first built. Like a dutiful child, she gathered up a novice’s robe, took a towel from the linen closet, and crossed the courtyard to the bathhouse with her dirty clothes in hand. She kept to the shadows without thinking, avoiding the beams of late afternoon sunlight that broke through the canopy outside the convent walls.

While she no longer burned on mere contact, like she had as a child, years of habit made hiding from the sun an almost unconscious act. She did burn faster than normal humans, and those burns were often more painful and slower to heal than any other wound she suffered. Since her cloak was too dirty to protect her, she crept from shadow to shadow until she was safely beneath the roof of the fragrant bathhouse.

The Sisters made their soap of lavender and hyssop, and the smell lingered in every crevice, mixed with the mineral tang of the hot spring over which the house was built. Alix stripped, dropped her dirty clothes into the wash bucket, and stepped down into the steaming water wearing nothing but the simple silver chain and ruby teardrop pendant her mother had given her as a child. 

She lifted a soap cake from the bench, lathered up, and luxuriated in the first full bath she’d had in weeks. Afterward, she dressed in novice’s robes and carried her clothes to the hot end of the pool, which was the perfect temperature for laundering, crouched next to a novice who was scrubbing aprons, and got to work. 

With her clothes hung on the drying lines, she sat on a large rock under her favorite plum tree to brush her hair and let the lingering warmth in the air dry the long strands. The convent was the closest thing Alix had to a home and the only place she had ever felt truly at ease. Unlike the towns she passed through or worked in, everyone in the convent knew what she was, and none of them feared her. Nowhere else in the world could she lay under a tree with her hair spread in the grass and let her mind wander peacefully.

About an hour later, a light tread on the grass made Alix open her eyes from a comfortable doze. The footsteps were confident but soft, favoring the right leg, and the scent of paper, ink, and leather floated toward her.

“Sister Mary Paul,” Alix said without looking at the woman. “How are you?”

“How did you know? I changed my gait, this time.”

Alix smiled and rolled over to watch the small elf woman approach. She had rich brown skin and delicately pointed ears that peeked between strands of long braids kept tied back. The novice uniform was several sizes too big for her and stayed on her slender frame only with several belts and ties. Ink stained her fingers, and she carried a book in her right hand.

“It was your smell,” Alix admitted. “You always smell of libraries.”

Mary Paul raised her hands in defeat. “Well, I cannot change that, so I suppose I shall never fool you. Unless I spend all day with Sister Mary Matthew in the Kitchens. Would lard and lemon throw off your senses?”

“No way to know unless you try, I suppose.”

“I shall take it under advisement,” she said with a smile. “You know why I’m here?”

“Mother Superior has sent for me?”

Mary Paul bobbed a little nod. “When you’re done getting orders, come visit me. I have a few things you might find interesting.”

The office of the Mother Superior of the Sisters of St. Christopher was located in the central tower of the convent that had been a bell tower some hundred years ago. The woman liked high positions from which to stare down at the world. Her clothing had not had time to dry, so Alix knocked on the thick wooden door still wearing the novice robes.

“Come.”

Alix pushed the heavy door open and froze. Mother Superior was an imposing woman, tall, with wide shoulders and broad hands. Her nose had been broken at some point, and she had a slight under bite that made her stubborn jaw even more prominent. Everything in the office was neat, organized, and scrupulously clean… except for the werewolf sitting in one of two chairs before the Mother’s desk.

Cyrus turned to watch her, one corner of his mouth quirked in amusement. Her blood had been on his lips not twenty-four hours ago. 

“Alix, if you cannot control yourself, tell me now,” Mother Superior said in her incongruously airy voice. “I don’t wish to replace any more door handles or furniture.”

Alix released the handle, leaving dents in the metal. 

“What is he doing here? Mother, you realize–”

“Of course, I know what he is. Do not be tiresome. Either come in and shut the door or leave.”

Turning around and slamming the door behind herself was tempting. “That creature should be in a cell, not in your office.”

“That’s a fine way to thank someone who saved your life,” Cyrus said.

Alix started to snarl a reply, but Mother Superior stood up and cleared her throat, then spoke directly to Alix’s mind. “You would think that three hundred years would be long enough to learn to control one’s temper. Alix, the Convent of the Sisters of St. Christopher has been a haven for you since you were a girl. Do not disrespect it now. Trust me as you have trusted me in the past. There is a mission, perhaps the most important mission we have ever assigned, and no one is suited for it as you are. But if you cannot control yourself, I will ask you to leave.”

Alix gritted her teeth, closed the door with every bit of self-control she could muster, pulled the extra chair as far from the wolf as possible, and sat on the edge so she might be ready to spring into action at any moment. Mother Superior was not a foolish woman, but she did not know what this wolf was capable of. He must have broken silver chains to bring her here, because that was the only way he could have carried her.

Any werewolf who could not only abide the touch of silver but break it at will was something to be feared, even by one who killed as many monsters as Alix had. It was probably not a good idea to leave him alone with the Mother. So Alix forced herself to stay and listen.

“Now, children, if we can focus on the task at hand? Good. I understand the two of you have met, unfortunately. Things may have progressed more smoothly if I had the chance to introduce you to one another, first. Alas, here we are.”

Alix doubted anything she could say would make her acquaintance with a monster any more bearable, but she kept her mouth stubbornly shut.

“In the hopes that it may still do some good,” Mother Superior continued, “allow me to introduce you. Cyrus, this is Alix La Rouge. She is a Hunter, one of the very best, and has worked for the Sisters of St. Christopher times without count. I trust her explicitly,” she said the word while giving Alix a warning eye. “And I commend her to you with the highest esteem.”

Alix kept her eyes locked forward, though she felt the wolf’s regard like heat on the side of her face.

“Alix, this is Cyrus Campbell. He is also a Hunter and a member of an ancient and pure line. His people stretch back millennia, and he is one of the last. He has worked with sister convents and other organizations for over two hundred years, and,” she narrowed her eyes at Alix, “his record is spotless.”

Alix blinked. “What? What does this mean, a pure line? There are no lines of werewolves, only those unfortunate enough to turn after an attack, and those who choose to bind themselves to malevolent powers.”

“You are mistaken,” Cyrus said, speaking before the Mother could respond.

“Like hell I am.”

Who did they think they were talking to? She had more experience with the beasts than anyone else alive, even those who were not strictly human. She had no intention of sitting here while they spewed such dangerous nonsense. Then, again, the wolf had born silver and resisted the moon change, so something about him was unnatural, but nothing that could make him anything other than a monster.

Firmly convinced she was in the right, Alix folded her arms and stuck out her chin. The wolf glared at her, the Mother Superior glared at her… this was going to be a long meeting.

A more pigheaded, shortsighted, foul-tempered woman had never been born. She glared at him with her arms folded over her chest and her nostrils flared, probably imagining gutting him on the floor before the Mother Superior’s eyes. He was a fool to save such a resentful woman.

He should have left her in the woods.

But the Mother Superior nodded as if Alix’s furious inaction was as good as a peace promise, and said, “I would not ask this of either of you if the matter were not of the gravest importance, so allow me to lay the case before you. For several months now, we have received reports of a deeply concerning nature: werewolves ravaging whole towns in packs, seemingly immune to silver. Of course, we doubted such claims at first, they were simply too outlandish. Werewolves are not natural creatures that run in packs. Their natures do not allow such a thing. So we ignored the reports as superstition or misunderstanding. At least, until some of the survivors appeared to tell their stories.”

“The werewolves I killed recently,” Alix began, but Cyrus interrupted, “We. The werewolves we killed recently.”

She stared daggers at him, he grinned in a manner guaranteed to irritate her, and she continued through her teeth, “The werewolves we killed were hunting…well, not precisely in a pack with coordinated movements, but there were three, and two did work together. And they resisted my silver bullets far longer than they should have.”

“This further confirms the accounts I have heard,” the nun said, nodding gravely. “Cyrus, I know you will not like to hear this, but I can see only two possibilities.”

“My people would never commit such acts, sister,” he reassured her. Besides that, there were not enough of them left to be considered a pack, and they were spread from the Highlands to the far east.

Alix snorted, and he restrained the impulse to snap at her. His family had been very careful to keep knowledge of their existence contained, particularly as their numbers had decreased while the monsters thrived, so it wasn’t surprising she did not know of the True Born. But her hostile suspicion was a thorn he could not stop to remove from his shoe.

“Is there any chance another family might have given way to the darkness?” the nun asked.

He frowned. “There aren’t many families left. While I would like to say no…I cannot guarantee it.”

She nodded, seeming to understand how much that admission had cost him, then steepled her fingers on the desk. “Then we cannot rule it out. I do not know which is worse, a corrupted family or someone tampering with the infected. I cannot even imagine how anyone might manage such a thing.”

“Families? The infected? Mother, why do you draw such distinctions? You know as well as I that werewolves are only made through magical infection. Whether by being savaged, or inviting the magic, the mechanism is the same. Is this to save his feelings? Because I can guarantee you, he has none.”

Cyrus flexed his hands, imagining wrapping them round her throat. That would shut her up.

The Mother said, “Do you truly believe me misguided, Alix? That I could lead the Sisters of St. Christopher this long and not understand the nature of the enemy?”

Alix looked as if that was exactly what she believed.

“Let me be very clear,” the nun said in a firm voice. “All werewolves are not the same. You are correct that the average werewolf is either bitten or seeks out dark magic for the power it provides. In one case the victim is overpowered by the change. On the other, they surrender themselves to it, willingly. Both turn into mindless machines of destruction.”

Alix nodded.

“But there are still others,” Cyrus said, his voice low and soft with memory. He could see his brother, just a bairn wrapped in swaddling, as their mother held him up, an offering to the moon and a promise of protection for the future. He had wriggled like a freshly caught trout until he freed his wee fist and waved it in the air. “We are those who partner with the magic, who train for the burden, who give ourselves as a sacrifice to protect kith and kin. We are the True Born children of the moon, offered to her as babes and chosen to live with her magic in our blood until our service is ended.”

“Tell yourself what you like, wolf. You certainly seem to have convinced her,” she threw a hand toward the Mother. “But I will not be taken in by fairy tales so easily. I have watched your kind tear babes from the arms of their mothers, and worse. There is nothing you can say that will convince me to trust you or absolve you from the guilt of what you are.”

When he spoke, his voice was barely controlled. “Is that so? And what kind of monster are you, Alix La Rouge? For you are certainly no human. Don’t forget that I have tasted your blood.”

She shot out of her chair so fast that, had he been purely human, he would not have even seen the movement until she was halfway across the floor. But he was not human, and he was tired of her jibes. She swung in a lightning-fast blow, but he caught her fist and prepared to rear back and throw her through the closest wall.

Enough!

The word rang in his mind, echoing off the inside of his skull with such force it brought him to his knees, and Alix with him.

You will both cease this childishness. Whole villages are dying, ravaged by monsters we cannot understand. If we do not stop them the threat will only spread. You are the most capable hunters on the Continent, and the best fit to end this threat. But if I cannot trust you to put innocent lives ahead of your own petty squabbles, say so now.

Alix rolled out of his reach, panting, a combination of fury and shame on her face. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and stood. “I have more reason to hate werewolves than most,” she said. “But I will never put myself above innocent lives. Even if it means working with the likes of him. You know this.”

The Mother Superior’s eyes softened. “I know it, my child. But you needed to be reminded.”

“You truly believe he is the right person to help me end this threat?”

“I would not have sent for him, otherwise.”

Cyrus stood, shook off the effects of the mental assault, and brushed his hair out of his face. “You do not ask me if I am willing to work with her,” he said, putting as much disgust into the word as possible.

Alix flinched, though she disguised it well. Her compromised humanity was a tender spot, then.

The Mother Superior raised her chin and told Cyrus, “If you will not, the Sisters will pay for your passage on any ship you wish to take.”

So, he was to be cast aside as easily as that, eh? The reputation of the Sisters of St. Christopher was beyond reproach, and everything he had heard told him the Mother Superior’s judgment was trustworthy. Besides, after seeing that damned woman in action he believed her deserving of the stories they told about The Red Cloak. But no matter how skilled she was, if this threat proved to be true, they would need one another. Had Alix not killed two of the werewolves before he fought the third, he would have gotten his throat ripped out.

And if he had not intervened while she tried to save the priest, she certainly would have been savaged.

Cyrus gritted his teeth. “Where shall we start?”

After being dismissed, he walked the entire circumference of the convent nearly six times before working off enough frustrated energy to relax. It was impossible to close his eyes without seeing the expression of hatred and disgust on Alix’s beautiful face. Worse, it was impossible not to admit to himself that he deserved it.

He sat on a bench in a patch of sunlight, kicked off his shoes, and dug his toes into the turf. The grass was warm from the sun, fragrant and soft beneath his toes. He focused on the feeling of the earth beneath him, the pull of gravity that told him where true north lay, and the musky scent of the goats that wandered the grounds to keep the grass cropped short.

After a while, the tension in his shoulders relaxed. He might be as much a monster as Alix claimed, but he didn’t have to live like one. He would kill when he was called upon to protect innocent lives, but in the meantime, he could enjoy a sunny afternoon just like anyone else. The burden of death and doom followed him, no matter how far he ran, but he could put it down for a little while and simply be a man sitting on a bench.

He leaned back and closed his eyes, listening to the comforting sounds of honest people working with their hands, of birds plucking bugs from the leaves of the pea plants, and the confident tread of the Mother Superior’s rather large feet. With a sigh, he opened his eyes and said, “Twice in one day? To what do I owe the honor?”

She stopped next to his bench and folded her hands. “Will you join me for a walk?”

“Gladly.”

“You must not blame Alix,” she said as they passed beneath the arching stone gate of the convent garden.

“But I would really like to.”

She laughed. “I know she can be difficult. And stubborn.”

“And dangerous.”

“That, too. But she had a very traumatic childhood.”

“Who did not?”

“True enough. She came to us as an orphan, with no one in the world. As she grew older, she wanted nothing more than revenge. I am ashamed to say my predecessors took advantage of her need for vengeance. There were more monsters in the world, then, and too many innocents died.”

“I remember,” he said, seeing a flash of blood-soaked grass and glassy eyes in his memory.

“Alix was trained as a Hunter from the age of thirteen. She has known nothing else. And because of her profession, she has seen and done terrible things,” she added softly.

Cyrus knew firsthand the way terrible things stuck in one’s memory, like heavy paving stones that built roads to places one did not wish to visit. “What did she hope to avenge?”

The Mother Superior looked at her feet as they walked down an aisle of rose bushes, her brow furrowed in thought. “I’m afraid that is her story. If you earn her trust, perhaps she will tell it to you.”

Earn the trust of that harpy? He doubted it. Even carrying her twenty miles to save her life hadn’t been enough to earn it. But he respected the Mother Superior’s decision. Whether he liked her or not, Alix had a right to keep or reveal her own past, just as he did. So he nodded and said, “I’ll do my best.”

“All will be well, then. Tell me, how is it that the last and strongest line of the Druids has yet to produce more heirs?”

“Oh, heirs have been produced. But the knowledge has not survived. We still offer our babes to the moon, but she has chosen no one in a hundred years.”

She shook her head, lips pressed together in a sad little smile. “First the Romans, and then the British. They knew the Druids were a threat, but they cannot have known what they stole from the world when they killed your people.”

“Or what they left in its place.”

They walked a while in silence, for which Cyrus was grateful. Beneath the sheltering branches inside the high stone walls, the world was peaceful and fragrant, so different from the towns outside that stunk of piss and mud. In those places, danger lurked around every corner and monsters wore men’s faces. But here, everything was exactly as safe as it seemed.

“You said we should begin in Mont Blanc. Are we looking for anything in particular?”

“First to confirm the testimony,” she said. “And then to discover what is causing this aberration. A lone werewolf is one thing, but a pack bent on destruction? Not even Paris could survive such a thing intact.”

Werewolves working strategically was a terrifying thought. Even with the advanced weapons mortals had created, they were not prepared for that kind of destruction. Modern cities were safe precisely because werewolves were solitary and mindless, especially when the hunger was on them.

She was right. If werewolves were becoming more dangerous, the world might not survive it. Something must be done, and he did not trust anyone else to do it. If that meant partnering with the harpy, so be it.

As they rounded the corner of the garden, he caught sight of a red cloak entering the library. Did Alix ever walk like a normal person, or did she prowl everywhere she went? As if she’d heard those thoughts, her head turned in his direction.

Her expression had been pleasant, even peaceful, but as soon as they locked eyes her lip curled in disgust and she hurried into the building in a flash of red. He was supposed to partner with this woman?

“It comforts me to know you will be protecting these people,” Mother Superior said, placing one hand on his shoulder and drawing him back from his thoughts. “I can sense the kindness in you, the compassion. They have need of it, and so does Alix.”

His jaw tightened convulsively. “But does she deserve it?”

She laughed, a light, gay sound that made the nuns near them turn and smile in their direction. “My dear soul, do any of us deserve it? What a sad world this would be if all of us received only what we deserved.”

Blood on the grass, glassy eyes staring at the sky, the acrid stench of smoke burning his nostrils. Cyrus blinked and swallowed. How many times had he been forgiven when he deserved only scorn and death? “I suppose that’s true, enough.”

Mother Superior looked at him with knowing eyes and nodded, once. “Show Alix the kindness you do not believe you deserve. I think she may surprise you.”

“Aye, or put a knife in my back when I’m not looking.”

“What is life without a few risks? Think of it as a challenge.”

She winked and left him at the intersection of two white stone paths, floating off into the shadows beneath the trees to encourage the sisters in their work. That woman was a master manipulator, but he wasn’t certain that even she could keep the two of them from killing one another once they were away from the calming influence of the convent.

Over the years Alix had left the convent with a pack on her back and a weapon on her hip hundreds of times, and yet saying goodbye to Sister Mary Therese and Sister Mary Paul still made her chest ache. They were the closest thing she had to family, and their warm embraces always made the uncaring world outside colder in comparison.

Her missions were lonely affairs by necessity, in part because no other hunters could keep up with her, but also because she never fully trusted herself around vulnerable people when the situation was dire. There was always the possibility, no matter how slight, that she might lose control of the monstrous side of her nature. If that happened, she would lose everything.

So Alix always hunted alone, and she liked it that way. Except for this time; this time, another monster strode down the road next to her.

Somehow Cyrus had insinuated himself into the trust of the Mother Superior, who had one of the most discerning minds Alix had ever encountered. Earning her trust meant he was clever, which made him even more dangerous than she feared.

He would likely try to pull the same mind tricks with her, but, unlike Mother Superior, Alix was ready. She had slept both nights at the convent despite not needing the sleep, and allowed Sister Mary Therese to serve her several pints of goat’s blood. Alix would never be able to sleep in the wild with Cyrus near, so she stored up as much strength and energy as possible. That way, when he finally snapped, she would be ready.

“How far is it to Mont Blanc?” Cyrus asked.

She tried not to look at him when she answered, but hatred drew her eyes in his direction far more often than she liked. He strode down the packed dirt road with a knapsack twice the size of hers on his broad back, acting as if it weighed nothing, while his shoulders and biceps strained his white shirt.

“Three days,” she said. “If we don’t sleep.”

“I asked how far, not how long.”

“I have not bothered measuring it in miles. Pull out the map if you need numbers.”

“You know, minx,” he said the damned word so casually, “we will be in one another’s company for at least a week. It would not kill you to be civil.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Whatever you say, Red.”

She stopped, one hand gripping the butt of her pistol, the other resting on the hilt of a silver knife poisoned with wolfsbane, and glared at the man until he stopped and faced her. “The Mother’s trust in you, and my promise to her, are the only things keeping you alive. Giving me reasons to regret my decision is not wise.”

Cyrus’ grin was decidedly wolfish. “It isn’t my fault if you cannot control your anger. Just remember, if you should decide to act on it: I’m no longer weak and in chains.”

“More’s the pity.”

“Why? Do you like your men submissive?”

“It makes no difference to you. You are not a man, wolf.”

His green eyes flashed with a dangerous spark of heat. “And you are no human woman, so I suppose that makes us both monsters, doesn’t it?”

Alix knew who and what she was. She had lived her entire, long life at the receiving end of suspicious glares and fearful glances. Simple words should no longer have the power to hurt her, and yet, at the reminder, pain punched a hole in her stomach and wrapped its long fingers around her guts.

No, she was not human and no matter how much she wished, she could not change the truth. It hurt all the way to her soul, but she refused to let it show in her eyes.

Instead, she stepped closer, too close for safety, and said, “Yes. Make no mistake, wolf. I am a monster, and you will get no human compassion or tenderness from me. So beware of what you say.”

“Or what?” he asked, leaning down until their faces were inches apart and she could see the splinters of furious gold surrounding his pupil. “You’ll break your word?”

A twist of her arm and a thrust would kill him. The fool had placed himself within arm’s reach, and her fingers closed around the hilt of the dagger in anticipation. But she did not move. Her jaw clenched, but her arms remained still.

“Aye,” Cyrus said, leaning back and nodding. “That’s what I thought. At least you have integrity if nothing else. I’ll trust to that, minx, and leave the rest to chance.”

He walked into the shadow of the trees without looking back. She stared after him for a long time, regretting her promise, and regretting more not drawing her knife. The reasonable part of her mind knew he was right; as much as she wanted to attack him, Cyrus had become safe from her the moment she made that promise.

So she would simply have to wait for him to free her from the oath by breaking his word. And he would, if she knew anything about werewolves. When that happened, she’d be ready. Until then, she wanted nothing to do with him and proved it by ignoring him, entirely.

Only the sounds of the forest and the occasional greeting from passing travelers broke the silence. Every greeting was, of course, aimed at Cyrus. A woman in trousers was a strange enough sight, but mortals often knew there was something wrong with Alix at first glance, even if they did not realize why. So she kept her eyes on the road and did her best to ignore the genial greetings and occasional quick conversations.

When the wolf wanted to, he could appear as nothing more than a big, friendly man. She did not need another reason to resent him, but he seemed intent on providing them.

Night rose from the shadows and sank from the sky to meet at the horizon, but they did not slow or stop. They walked day and night, eating from their packs and disappearing into the trees now and then to piss. The familiar country passed in a comforting blur of shades of green, birdsong, and the clean, earthy scents of dirt and wet grass.

It surprised Alix to find that, despite her bone-deep hatred of the man, traveling with someone else was… nice. Even without conversation, the sound of a second pair of feet was comforting. At least, until he spoke.

“What time will we reach the village tomorrow?”

“Near the end of the day,” she said.

“Then we should rest tonight.”

“If you are tired, just say so.”

“I’m not tired, but I’m not a stubborn fool, either.”

She turned to face him, hands on her hips. “Exactly what does that mean?”

“How long did you go without sleep before they shot you?”

“I don’t see what business it is of–”

“How long, Alix La Rouge? Three days? Four?”

She worked her jaw and told herself to stay calm. “Four.”

“Your body would have healed itself if you slept, wouldn’t it? You would not have fainted near the stream.”

“Yes. And I did not faint.”

He threw his arms in the air and said, “Then why do you fight me? You’re no fool. We'll need all the strength we can muster if we come upon werewolves. Why not care for yourself now, so you will be more effective when we arrive?”

“Because I don’t want to sleep anywhere near you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Trust me, lass, I’m not looking forward to it, either, but I’d rather die with your dagger in my back than beneath the teeth of a werewolf because I was too stupid to sleep when given the chance.”

With that, he turned and left the path, scouting for a suitable place to camp. Alix swore and followed him. This was a stupid idea. She could never sleep knowing he was near. The night would wear on minute by minute, hour by hour, and she would simply lie there for hours resenting him when she could be hunting, instead.

But perhaps he needed sleep. Her exposure to werewolves did not extend to their pattern of human sleeping habits, and if she was going to be forced to fight next to him, then she would rather not have a partner who made stupid mistakes because he was sleep deprived.

So, she would simply sleep with her daggers in her hands and hope the wolf had no more nightmares. Her memories were heavy enough to bear without adding his to the pile.

Cyrus chose a small, secluded spot screened by a copse of young saplings and protected from the wind by an outcropping of rock. Which irritated Alix, because it was exactly the spot she would have chosen. But, she supposed even fools stumbled upon the right answer now and then.

He went about the chores of setting up a camp with quiet efficiency, finishing tasks before she could even begin them. In short order, they had small canvas lean-to to protect them from rain, their bedrolls laid out, and dry wood stacked to keep a fire burning through the night.

She considered their camp, and said, “This is rather extravagant for a single-night bivouac.”

“Do you enjoy deprivation?”

“No more than anyone else, but I prefer to move light and quick.”

“And I prefer to be comfortable when I can. Besides, a night’s sleep can only do us good. In fact, we should have a hot meal,” he said, dusting his hands on his trousers.

“An open fire will give our presence away to anyone with a nose and half a brain.”

“So will the tracks on the road.”

Alix smirked and folded her arms, shifting her weight to one hip. “I do not leave tracks.”

“We have nothing to worry over. Anyone who comes looking for my camp is taking his life in his hands.” He said the words with a casual confidence that set her teeth on edge. Did he think he was the most dangerous thing in these woods?

“No matter how fast or strong you are, wolf, even you cannot dodge a bullet.”

“Are you threatening to shoot me, minx?”

Alix gritted her teeth and told herself that shooting him was not a good idea, and she should reign in her temper before it made her break her oath. “No, but if I were a bandit, I would shoot you while you slept.”

“Then I suppose it is a good thing for me you are not, and that I sleep lightly. I will be back. Get a fire started, will you?”

With that, he silently disappeared into the forest. He moved gracefully… but so did bears, in their way, so it wasn’t really that impressive.

By the time Cyrus returned with a young boar slung over one shoulder, a fire crackled happily against the rock. The stone absorbed and radiated the heat, letting the small fire do double duty of cooking the meat and heating the camp more efficiently while being less noticeable. Though there was nothing to be done about the scent of blood or frying meat. At least he had been smart enough to gut and clean the animal far enough from camp that not even she could smell the kill.

“That is a lot of meat,” she said as he began quartering the animal with smooth strokes of a knife nearly as long as her forearm.

“I am a big man, if you haven’t noticed. It takes more than cold sausage and stale bread to keep my belly button from bouncing against my spine.”

At that mental image, a snort of laughter escaped before she could stop it. He looked up, a curious expression in his eyes. Why did she suddenly feel self-conscious? It hadn’t been that long since she had laughed, had it?

She dismissed the laugh by saying, “I’ve never heard that expression.”

“Do that again,” he replied, his voice soft but insistent.

“What?”

“Laugh. Do it again.”

She rolled her eyes to give herself an excuse not to look at the intense green of his eyes, focused on her like a prey animal. “My humor cannot be commanded. Who can laugh on demand?”

He shrugged and went back to skinning their dinner, muttering to himself.

“What?” she demanded, irritated with his comfortable manner and commands, as if he was her friend who could talk to her any way he pleased.

He stopped cutting, looked up again through long strands of blonde hair that had come loose from the leather thong that tied it back, and said, “You snorted.”

“So?”

“It was…rather adorable.” He said the words as if he didn’t want to admit them, and she wholeheartedly wished he hadn’t.

“I don’t laugh to entertain wolves with misplaced senses of humor,” she snapped, turning away to grab the long piece of green wood they would use for a spit and forcing herself not to snap the newly peeled branch. “Besides, there is nothing funny about this situation.”

“I’ll give you that. This is no comedy. It is a tragedy.”

They ate in silence, and Alix kept her eyes on the hunk of steaming meat that was rich and gamey. The less she looked at or spoke to Cyrus, the better.

When he held out another piece of meat, she took it without raising her gaze, seeing only his hands, which looked like they belonged to a poet or a musician, not a killer.

If she noticed someone’s hands, it was to judge whether they had a weapon, but his were long-fingered and elegant, with clean, short nails. He plucked the last bit of meat from the roasting stick and dropped it into his mouth, licking the leftover fat from his thumb… and caught her looking.

Alix dropped her eyes and angrily chewed the boar meat.

When the last of their dinner was gone, she retreated to her bedroll, but Cyrus sat by the fire, picking his teeth.

“That is a disgusting habit,” she said, sliding beneath the blanket.

“What, this? No, this is cleaning my teeth. I have far more disgusting habits.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you are a judgemental shrew?”

That caught her off guard. Judgemental? She had never considered herself so. Discerning, maybe, but she tried to view people within the scope of their circumstances and not place unfair expectations on them.

Alix treated people as what they were; a cat could only be a cat, after all. And a werewolf could be nothing but a werewolf. Expecting anything more or less was asking to be disappointed. With that thought firmly in mind, she decided not to dignify his insult with a reply, but rolled over and tried to sleep.

At least, until Cyrus climbed into his bedroll.

She prepared to draw her daggers, but he made no move toward her, only shifted till he was comfortable and fell into an immediate sleep. She lay for a long time listening to him breathe. He had not changed shape in the cave, but then she’d imprisoned him with sliver and wolfsbane.

With no such precautions, and with his guard down, the magic could take over despite the full moon being weeks away. A nightmare or the scent of prey nearby could trigger the change and instead of a big blonde man, a shaggy werewolf would lie mere feet from her.

She should get up and take her bedroll on the other side of the fire to give herself more time to react, but he would only use that against her. “So much for the brave hunter, the infamous Manteau Rouge,” he would say. “She could not even sleep near a human man who had not so much as threatened her.”

But Alix knew how quickly a human could become a monster, and she vividly remembered the bristly, musty scent of the fur that scratched and tickled her skin, the rumbling growls, and her grandmother’s pleading eyes.

But Cyrus never changed or even rolled over in his sleep. He would, though. She knew it. So, she stayed still and kept both hands on her daggers. The clever little box Mary Paul gave her, full of dangerous surprises, stayed within reach, just in case.

The soft bedroll, the crackling fire, and cricket song should have made it a perfect evening, but Cyrus rarely spent a worse night. He’d slept more peacefully wounded in the cave on a stone floor than he did in a comfortable camp, and all because of his companion.

Of course, she not only hated him but was as dangerous as any monster, so no one would blame him for not resting easily. But several times he woke suddenly to the scent of her fear.

Had he been a dozen feet away, he would never have caught the scent, but her nearness made him hyper-aware of every movement, every breath. At first, he hadn’t believed her truly afraid because her physical response was nowhere near as strong as a humans should be. But his sensitive ears picked up the thud of a racing heartbeat and quick, sharp breaths.

Was she having a nightmare, or did something else bother her? She might wake from any nightmare and roll toward him with her silver knives drawn; not exactly conducive to a good night’s sleep.

So when they broke camp in the silvery pre-dawn light, he berated himself as a fool for having pushed her to stay the night. He’d thought the proximity and shared chores might make the two of them trust one another a bit, and force them to open up in a non-threatening way, but the strain only made them both tired and irritable.

As soon Alix slung her pack on her shoulders, she began brushing out her tracks with the leaves of a fallen branch.

“You think someone is following us?” He asked.

She looked surprised to hear his voice. “What?”

“Why are you brushing out our tracks?”

Alix looked at the branch as if surprised to find it in her hands. “Oh. Habit, I suppose. It costs nothing to be careful.”

Which was likely why she slept with a knife in each hand.

They left before the sun rose over the tree tops and jogged down the tightly packed dirt road past cottages, crossroads, and a rowdy-sounding inn with horses and donkeys tethered outside. A brawl spilled out the front door and onto the steps as they passed. Several men threw drunk, looping punches while other patrons stood in the door to point, laugh, and place bets.

“Fun place,” Cyrus muttered as they skirted the fighters.

Now and then the trees parted and the mountains lay before them, row upon row, fading into the distance. They did not stop for lunch but kept up a steady jog through the afternoon. Slowly, oak and maple gave way to pine, and the sun sank below the tree tops. The wind picked up, filling the forest with the uneasy whispers of trees that had seen too much… and the scent of dried blood and rotten flesh.

His instincts kicked in, giving him a hit of adrenaline and making every hair on the back of his neck stand at attention. A fallen leaf tumbled through the air and plastered itself against his chest as he caught the scent, held his breath, and verified the direction.

“Do you smell that?” he asked.

Alix inhaled, closed her eyes, and shivered. “It is faint, but…it smells like the survivors were not lying.”

“How far is the village?”

“No more than a mile. Do you need to do anything to prepare yourself?”

“Such as?”

“Such as taking off your clothes?”

“Longing to see me naked, are you?”

She snorted. “I saw more than enough when treating your wounds. Another look might damage my brain.”

Judging by the arousal he smelled that night, she was lying, but now wasn’t the time to call her on it. “No, I don’t need to remove my clothes.”

“Suit yourself, wolf,” she shrugged and resumed walking. “If you want to tear your way through your clothing, I suppose that is your choice.”

Soon enough she'd see why he did not need to remove his clothing, and he was going to enjoy the shocked expression on her face. In the meantime, since she was at least attempting civility, keeping the peace was a good idea.

As they neared the village, blood, offal, and rot tainted the air until it was almost unfit to breathe. Cyrus pulled his neck kerchief over his nose and tried to breathe through his mouth, but that was a mistake; tasting death on the air was worse than smelling it.

At last, they crested a rise and looked down into a surprisingly large collection of wooden buildings situated at a crossroads and near a stream. The town likely made a majority of its income by serving travelers going to and coming from Switzerland. Or they had. From the look of the town, there was no one left to sell or trade.

“If this is too difficult for you, tell me now,” Alix said, knives already in her hands. “The smell will only get worse, and not all of the bodies will be–defiled.”

What she meant was, will you be tempted to eat the dead bodies?

He felt the growl threatening and swallowed it back. “I have never and will never defile a mortal body,” he said.

She raised dark eyebrows in disbelief, but only said, “Are you ready, then?”

Instead of answering, he strode into the remains of the village. The citizens had been fairly well-to-do at one time. Shops, public buildings, and homes were simple but well-made, including decorative elements only those with time, money or both could afford. A dirt track ran down the center of town, with a few two-story buildings lining the street and staring down at their shorter companions with lofty pride. Children probably ran down these streets laughing, once.

But the avenues, doors, and windows were dark and empty. Bullet holes riddled the wood siding. Porch pillars were snapped in half, leaving splinters as long as his forearm in the street. Here and there, in a doorway or at the corner of a building, lay the broken remains of a villager.

By some silent agreement, he and Alix walked with their backs toward one another, slow and quiet, reading the signs. Claw marks scarred the streets and porches, too deep and large to be a lynx, and too many to be a solitary bear.

“This place stinks of werewolf,” Alix said in a low voice.

She was right.

He passed the body of a woman who died with a spade in her hand, the digging edges stained with dried blood and littered with long gray hairs. She fought, but the beasts tore her stomach open, anyway. Cyrus closed his eyes for a moment and said a quick prayer to the moon for her soul. With agonizing slowness they canvased the town, taking in every gut-wrenching sight. They did not need to confer to agree that werewolves had ravaged the place, and left it empty.

“We should check the buildings,” Alix said. Her voice was hard, her hands clenched into fists. Speaking to him was the last thing she wished to do. “If the villagers managed to kill any of the monsters we can examine their bodies and hang them outside the town as a warning.”

Anger radiated off her in waves. He suspected she included him in the use of the word monster, but he didn't resent her for it. The abominations that ravaged this town were monsters of the purest kind, and even if he was only adjacent to them by sharing a similar gift, guilt wrapped slimy fingers around his heart. Monster was not a strong enough word to describe the kind of evil that delighted in causing such destruction.

He needed to move, to do something, or he was going to scream.

“I’ll take the north side,” he said.

Cyrus strode away without looking back. He began by searching along the outside of the buildings, examining claw marks and bullet holes in the wood, trying to decipher the story told by the damage. The villagers fought but were ill-prepared for the sheer magnitude of violence. Judging by the differing sizes of claw marks in the wood and dirt road, there were at least four werewolves. Even if they had been prepared, the villagers would never have stood a chance.

Cyrus learned what else the exterior signs revealed, but he was merely stalling; he could not ignore the inside of the buildings forever.

The death and devastation in the shadowed halls were beyond description. Sharp-edged memories, too like the scenes before him, tumbled out of the dark corners of his mind to cut him to quivering shreds. Instead of walking through the wooden buildings of a remote mountain village in France, he staggered through the remains of smoldering thatch roofs and crumbled stone walls. Blood was splattered everywhere: on walls, on the dirt, and in the grass.

The bodies of men and women he had known all his life were strewn about, left in the positions in which they had fallen, like leaves tumbled by the wind. Even Granny Campbell lay face down on the path with her cap loose. Blood plastered her white hair to her head and neck. She had been carrying a basket full of dandelion greens, and the little yellow heads lay about her like scattered stars.

He wanted to run screaming, to call for Effie and Lyrus, but his shocked body only stumbled forward in a numb trance and choked on the acrid smoke hanging over his village.

When he found them, at last, he wobbled to the ground with a choked cry. They lay in the tall grass at the edge of the village, pale and broken, like discarded pieces of pottery. Lyrus was only fifteen, but he had died with Effie in his arms, protecting her small body with his own. The boy had taken his sister and run with her toward the safety of the forest. But they never reached it. Lyrus had tried to hide the girl in his plaid, but her little foot poked out from beneath the cloth folds.

Her foot? It had been her hand he saw, chubby fingers limp, the rest of her body sheltered even in death by her older brother. So why did he see a foot?

Cyrus blinked away the vision and realized that he was, indeed looking at a little foot. Only this wasn't the foot of his little sister, and she was not dead. This small foot barely poked out from beneath a rope bed, and as he crept closer, it disappeared, scooting farther into the shadows with a furtive rustle. A little heart beat madly and fear, sharp in his nostrils, cut through the scent of rot.

With great care so as not to frighten them, he knelt and bent down. A small body and a dirty face stared back at him with wide, terrified eyes.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, making his voice as kind as possible despite the grief squeezing his throat. “Don’t be scared. I’m here to help you. Do you want to come out?”

The child’s body curled up like a little hedgehog, face hidden protectively behind arms and knees. If he reached under to pull the child out or lifted the straw mattress off the bed frame, that would only terrify them. So, he tried to remember what worked for Effie when she was angry or sad.

“I promise I will not hurt you, or allow anyone else to do so,” he told the child. “Perhaps I’ll sit with you a while if that’s alright?”

No answer.

Cyrus leaned against the wall and let his eyes roam over the rest of the room. A small family had lived here. There was a bed, a little cot, a dresser, a table, just enough to get by and no more. Two adult bodies in the late stages of decay lay on the floor near the door, a man and a woman judging by their shape. Someone had covered their bodies with a blanket from the bed.

Moon and stars, the child lost both parents. Mother Superior said the slaughter took place nearly two weeks ago, so the child must be starving. He swallowed back bile at the idea of the little one living here, alone, starving among the dead bodies of mother and father and likely everyone they knew.

His heart wrenched for the sadness and futility of it.

“Do you follow any religion, little one? Did you say prayers over their bodies?” he asked the child.

No answer.

Something should be said, something meaningful. A song sprung to his mind that somehow seemed fitting, an Irish song he thought it was, though he could not remember where first he heard it. He began singing before he realized he had opened his mouth.

“Of all the money e'er I had,

I spent it in good company.

And all the harm that e’er I’ve done,

Alas! it was to none but me.

And all I've done for want of wit

To mem'ry now I can't recall

So fill to me the parting glass

Good night and joy be with you all

Oh, all the comrades e'er I had,

They're sorry for my going away,

And all the sweethearts e'er I had,

They'd wish me one more day to stay,

But since it falls unto my lot,

That I should rise and you should not,

I gently rise and softly call,

That I should go and you should not,

Good night and joy be with you all.

If I had money enough to spend,

And leisure time to sit awhile,

There is a fair maid in this town,

That sorely has my heart beguiled.

Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips,

I own she has my heart in thrall,

Then fill to me the parting glass,

Good night and joy be with you all.”

He sang it slowly, letting the sad words of parting linger in the air like a benediction for all the sorrow this small room had seen. When the song finished, he started again. A little face appeared at the edge of the bed, peeking out of the shadows, and in it a pair of wide eyes, blue as the sky.

By the time he began a third refrain, the small girl child climbed into his lap.

Her body was stick-thin and cold, and she curled against him as one might cuddle a big dog for warmth and comfort. He rubbed her back and arms to warm her and kept singing. The words were in English, so he doubted she understood them, but they were full of bittersweet sorrow, and he thought she understood that well enough.

When he finished the fourth refrain, he said in French, “Are you hungry, sweetheart? I have food and water.”

She did not speak, but he felt her nod against his chest. He cradled her like a baby bird and rolled to his feet. There was bread in the pack, though she may need it softened with milk. Her stomach was likely in sore condition and he didn’t want her to be sick. But he would not feed her here. Not here. The woods were close enough. Cyrus turned to leave but halted and caught his breath.

Alix stood in the doorway, silver knives in hand, her eyes wide, lips trembling. A little chill ran up his spine. Holy hell the woman moved quietly. And she looked as if she could not decide between gutting him or crying.

“We need to feed her,” he said in a soothing voice, “but her stomach won’t be very strong. Did you happen to see or smell any livestock? Goats or cows, anything that gives milk?”

Alix blinked as if she didn’t understand him, as if her eyes did not see him at all but something else, something terrible.

He chanced walking toward her, though her body was as stiff as a doe that scented a hunter. “Alix? She needs food, preferably soft food. If we don’t feel her, she’ll die.”

When he was within about ten feet, Alix raised her arms as if to ward him off, knives out and blocking the door. Just what he needed: two traumatized souls to care for. She shook and her throat muscles worked as if she wanted to speak or cry, but her feet were rooted to the spot.

She was either having a panic attack, or she was about to kill him.

Alix was in two places at once: standing in the doorway of the shabby apartment that stank of rotting flesh, and lying on the ground next to the dead body of her grandmother. She had been nine, as old as the child Cyrus cradled against his chest, only there had been no one to comfort her.

Blood covered her hands, soaked into her skirt, and stained the cloak her mother always made her wear, filling the air with the scent of copper and making her mouth water. She hadn’t been able to help it, and her body’s response made her so sick that she stumbled out of her grandmother’s cottage and got sick in the bushes.

The moon had watched it all in remote, uncaring silence, leaving her to face the horror alone. Only she wasn’t alone, and she wasn’t kneeling outside in the cold night. She was standing in the destroyed rubble of someone else’s life, looking through the lens of their tragedy at her own pain. Past and present formed two impenetrable walls that crushed her between them, locking her body in place.

“Alix,” Cyrus said, his voice deep and soft, like a feather bed. “Alix, you are safe. You are safe, lass.”

When his fingers touched her cheek she came hurtling back into her body and flinched away so violently that her back slammed into the wall behind her.

Words fought their way up her throat and came out in a ragged whisper. “Don’t touch me.”

He turned away, sheltering the girl’s body with his own as if protecting the child…from her? That startled Alix back to full consciousness. Did he truly believe her capable of hurting a child? Of course he did.

Because she had. The brother and sister werewolves she killed had been teenagers, barely more than children. Perhaps she was a monster, after all. Swallowing back her pain, Alix sheathed her daggers and modulated her voice to sound calm and collected.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Yes, let us feed her, but not here. There is a good camping spot outside of town. I think we have seen more than enough to draw conclusions about what happened here.”

Cyrus’ expression was carefully neutral, but he said, “Agreed.”

She turned and left the building without looking back or waiting for him. With his long legs and keen sense of smell, he would have no trouble following her, and she needed some time to calm her nerves before she did something stupid.

Upon coming to her senses, her first instinct had been to snatch the girl from his arms. After all, he was precisely the kind of monster who had slaughtered everyone she knew and loved. But that would only have terrified the girl more, and Alix was smart enough to recognize that she was currently in no condition to make a traumatized child feel safe.

Long strides carried her back down the dirt street and out of town, where she turned into the forest. The undergrowth had been cleared by goats and pigs and townsfolk long ago, but a stand of boulders over the rise were big enough to shield a camp from the road and provide some small protection from the wind.

Alix headed for the spot as she tried to clear her mind and regain some sense of peace, which had been in short supply over the last week. Ever since she had foolishly rescued that damned wolf. Letting him walk into that town without a guard had gone against every instinct she had spent three hundred years honing. He could go anywhere, hurt anyone if she wasn’t there to stop him.

But she had made a promise to work with him. So she had cleared her side of the town and assessed the damage with all possible speed. It appeared that the villagers had managed to kill at least two werewolves, judging by the state of the bodies, and she was fiercely glad they had managed that much.

A man, who may have been in his forties, lay on the dirt road with several holes in his exposed skull and a broken silver candlestick jammed between his ribs. By the angle of the bullet holes, someone had shot him from an upper window and incapacitated him long enough for another villager to poison him with silver. He had shifted back to his human form in death, when the magic left him.

His corpse may have provided other clues, but wolves or other scavengers had carried off whatever body parts were easily detached, leaving that trail cold. The rest of the town showcased similar scenes, like grotesque tableaus at a traveling circus, just waiting for the viewer to stumble across the horrid sights.

But Alix was intimately acquainted with death, and she had been expecting such sights and smells. But then she found the closet door blocked by a chair and table that had been dragged across the floor. Thinking someone might have been hidden inside for protection, Alix had shoved the furniture aside and pulled open the door to see...food.

Canned goods in questionable condition had been stacked one side of the closet floor, and empty cans lay discarded on the other. Someone without a can opener had crushed the tin with a heavy rock until the contents leaked out onto the thin rug. Little fingerprints left streaks in the stains. Small hands had scooped up the escaped liquid.

Now Alix knew who hid the scrounged food, and why. Imagining the small girl alone, hiding in the dark closet, hammering at tin cans with a rock to keep herself from starving made her stomach heave. When Alix ran away after her grandmother’s death, she had at least been fast enough to catch small animals to keep herself from starving. To this day she could still feel the fur and hot blood in her mouth when she remembered those times. The rabbits had screamed and struggled, but they were easier to catch than squirrels.

Alix clenched her fists against the memories and left a train for Cyrus behind the boulders, where a stand of saplings created a suitable place to tie their canvas tent. She slung her pack onto the ground and began pulling out the cans she had rescued from the closet. The mess kit followed.

She tore the leftover stale bread into small chunks and dropped them into her bowl. Having something productive to do helped settle her mind, so when Cyrus appeared with the girl, Alix was calm enough to ask, “Peach juice, or condensed milk? The sugar may help.”

“Aye, but the milk will be more fortifying. How does that sound, my dear? Bread and milk.”

The girl refused to respond and buried her small face against Cyrus’ chest, which could not have smelled very nice given their days on the road. Alix tore the top off the can of condensed milk and drizzled the syrupy liquid over the bread until it was the consistency of porridge.

After a bit of coaxing, the girl ate like a starved animal, then licked the bowl clean and drank a carefully measured amount of water.

In her tiny hands, the cup looked huge, but not so big as the pleading eyes she leveled at Cyrus while holding up the bowl for more.

“I’m sorry, lass. If you eat and drink too much too fast, you’ll make yourself sick.”

She frowned up at him from her perch on his knee, looking like a fierce little badger with her dirty face and tangled hair. The poor thing was still hungry and debating whether getting more food was worth fighting her rescuer. But she was also safe and fed, and the weariness of her long ordeal overwhelmed her desire for food. With a yawn and a few owlish blinks, the child lay her head against the wolf’s chest, and fell asleep within seconds.

“Poor bairn,” Cyrus said, cupping the back of her dirty blonde head with one huge hand. He could have crushed her skull with a mere flex of his muscles, but he held her as if she were made of glass.

In a way, she was. And if they were not careful, she would break. But no father could have held his own daughter with more tenderness.

“What do we do with the poor thing?” he asked.

“There are no other villages nearby.”

“What about the convent?”

“The Sisters would certainly take the girl in, but traveling at a speed safe for her recovery will take several days, and the werewolves trail has already grown cold.”

“Perhaps someone at the Inn we passed would be willing to care for the girl.”

Alix grimaced. “It is a rough place in the backcountry. Not very suitable for a child, especially a traumatized child.”

“The Convent is the only other answer. And you are right, the trail is cold. If we do not stop these killings, there will be more traumatized children. My vote is for the inn.”

Alix stared at a monster who wore the skin of a man and cradled a sleeping child against his chest as he spoke of protecting lives. She wanted to demand how he could speak this way knowing his kind were responsible for orphaning the girl in his arms… but she could not.

Watching him with the child had broken something in her chest. Accusing him now felt wrong, and in a strange way that feeling made her more distrustful: a monster she could understand and predict. She knew how to treat a monster, and what to expect from one. How was she supposed to protect herself from a werewolf who had tried to save her life and defended orphaned children?

Could he be telling the truth about his family’s origins? Was it possible there were werewolves walking this world that were not ravening monsters?

No. She could not afford to think that way. He may have more control than the average werewolf, but blood always had the last say, and he would show his true colors sooner or later. No matter how many heroic deeds he did, fangs and claws would always be there, just under the surface of his skin, waiting for an opportunity to prove that a monster was always a monster.

That truth settled upon her like armor, erasing her doubts and removing her unease.

“We will bring her to the Inn, then, and see if there is a suitable situation for her, there. We can pay someone to notify the convent, and have one of the sisters send for her. If she is still at the Inn when we finish this mission, we can escort her to the convent, ourselves.”

Her voice sounded much more like the Alix she needed to be: cool and confident, with no trace of the scared girl who had, once upon a time, believed that a monster could be saved. That lesson was written on her bones in blood, and did not bear repeating.

“Very well,” Cyrus agreed. “That won't take us too far from our mission, and innkeepers always hear any news worth speaking of. We can push for information when we find her a guardian.”

Alix stood up and dusted off her pants. “Very well, then, that’s settled. I’m going to scout the perimeter of the town to see where the tracks lead. I’ll be back in an hour or so. If that child is not safe when I return, I will kill you, my oath to the Mother Superior be damned.”

His eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched, and his nostrils flared, but Alix was not intimidated by his anger. She turned and loped into the woods without looking back.

Given what he had done, both in trying to save her and in protecting the girl, her statement was deeply insulting, but she needed to be reminded of what he really was, needed to say it aloud so they both knew where she stood. And he needed to know she had not dropped her guard.

It was far too easy to see him as a man, and that was a danger she could not afford.

After about an hour, she had followed the werewolves' tracks from town and up high onto the slope of the mountain, where she lost them among scree fields and granite boulders. She would have liked to quarter the ground and pick up their trail, but the sun was creeping toward the horizon and she did not like to leave the girl alone with the wolf for too long.

By the time Alix returned, the scent of frying meat and wood smoke was thick in the air. What was the fool thinking to be cooking meat so close to the site of a recent slaughter? Werewolves had claimed this place with their kill, and their senses were easily keen enough to smell meat and smoke on the air from a mile away.

She crashed through the bushes into camp and demanded, “Are you trying to draw every predator on the mountainside down on us?”

Cyrus did not bother to look up from the skewers he was using to fry the last of their fresh meat, but turned each of them carefully over the flames before responding, “The only predator on this mountain you need to fear is me.”

He had not forgiven her last insult. His voice was flat and cold. Dangerous. She had known he was dangerous, but when he looked up with the firelight in his green eyes, a chill ran down her spine. The child lay in a bundle of blankets on the other side of the fire, her little chest rising and falling peacefully. Safe.

“Fear you? Do not flatter yourself. I can see what your game is. You want to signal them with the scent of fresh meat,” Alix said, keeping her voice low so as not to wake the child, but adding as much venom as possible to every word. “You think you will finally be able to overpower me once they join you. Well, you won’t find it so easy, wolf. I can promise you that. I will sell my life more dearly than you can imagine, and it is not for the likes of you to take me down.”

She drew her daggers as she spoke, and stood on the edge of the camp in the twilight with her feet planted. This moment had been coming since she had first captured him. It might as well happen now. After he was dead, Alix would take the child back to the Sisters of St. Christopher and give her the same option she had been given as a child: vengeance, if she wanted it.

Cyrus gave her daggers a dismissive glance, then wiped his fingers clean and stood. Once he was satisfied the girl was fast asleep, he turned his full attention on Alix. No one had ever looked at her that way, with absolute attention, seeing every detail, cataloging every breath. Her heartbeat quickened, thudding against her ribcage in anticipation of the fight.

“You have insulted me for the last time,” he said as he stalked toward her, light on his feet, unnaturally graceful.

“On this, we are agreed.”

Alix did not wait for him to get any closer. It was foolish to let a competent enemy choose the manner of the fight. Instead, she attacked in a silent rush, daggers slicing through the air with lethal speed and accuracy.

Cyrus did not change into his wolf form to fight back. Instead, he sidestepped her first swing, parried her second by batting her hand away as it passed, and blocked a kick by raising his knee and taking the impact on the outside of his calf. He was too fast and well-trained for an easy fight, Alix realized.

She adjusted her grip and changed directions, feinting toward his left side, then gathered her strength and leaped over his head, turning in mid-air to land facing his back. But he wasn’t where she expected him to be when she landed. A fist twice the size of hers shot toward her face in a jab that she barely dodged, but countered with a forward kick toward the outside of his lead leg.

They fought in silence, attack and counter, jab and parry, in a blinding swirl of movement like a violent dance with no music other than their breath and pounding hearts. Around the boulders, in and out of the trees, without pause or hesitation. Cyrus was too fast and too skilled, and he was not getting tired. If she didn’t do something soon, he would capitalize on the first mistake she made and kill her. It was only a matter of time.

Alix flipped her daggers into a downward grip and leaped with all the speed she could manage, but he caught her by the wrists in mid-air, spun, and slammed her against the boulder, trapping her body between the rock and his chest.

The impact made all the air rush from her lungs, but she raised her legs and locked them around his waist, squeezing with bruising force as she fought to free her arms. But Cyrus was enormously strong, far stronger than she had realized. She may as well have fought with the mountain, itself.

He leaned harder against her, crushing her against the rock with his chest and hips, and she snarled into his face, “I’m going to kill you, wolf.”

“No, you are not.”

“You are a fool.”

“I am perfectly safe from you. Would you like to know how I know?”

“I would like you dead and skinned on my floor!”

Cyrus leaned in farther, until his body was pressed against her from hip to chest, her arms stretched out and useless as he pinned them against the rock by her wrists. “If you truly wanted me dead, you would have drawn your pistol and shot me in the head from cover.”

“What do you know of how I would–”

“Because I know all about your methods, La manteau rouge. I have studied your kills for years before I ever knew who you were. If you wanted me dead, I would have been dead already. No,” he said, his eyes roaming over her face, her lips, his breath hot on her neck. “You didn’t want me dead when you barged into camp, Alix. You wanted a fight. That’s why you drew your knives instead of your pistols. That’s why you insulted me, to start a fight.”

“I did not want the gunfire to wake the child, you bloody idiot.”

“No,” he said, his voice growing soft. “You are frustrated, scared…angry. Your memories are haunting you. You wanted to burn the memories away, and there was no other way to do it. But you do not want me dead.”

The tip of his nose ran down the length of her neck and sent a cascade of shivers down her spine. He inhaled deeply, pulling the scent of her deep into his lungs and making a little sound of pleasure in his chest.

Alix shook her head, still straining against his grip on her wrists, trying to free her weapons. “Yes, I do want you dead. You are a monster.”

“No, you don’t,” he repeated. “But you do want me. I can smell it. I can feel the hunger on you. You want to be overpowered, don’t you? To be forced to submit, because you are too damned stubborn to accept anything else.”

In a powerful twist, Alix wrenched her arm free and struck Cyrus across the face. His head snapped to the side, but he caught her wrist again and slammed it against the rock, knocking the dagger free. Her blow had split his lip, and his tongue darted out to catch the blood. The scent of it filled the air between them, even as the wound began to heal.

“Violent minx,” he purred.

“Don’t call me that.”

He leaned closer, until their lips were nearly touching and she could taste his breath, watch his pupils dilate, feel the warmth of him through their clothing, the hard thrust of his cock against the inside of her thigh. If Cyrus wanted to kill her, he could do it. She was more vulnerable now than she had been in her entire adult life. And his lips were so close. And she was so terribly alone.

“Violent minx. Kiss me,” Cyrus ordered.

The command hit her in the chest like a blow. With a moan of need and despair, Alix obeyed. It was not a tender thing, full of innocence and fearful desire. Alix kissed him like a drowning person fighting for air, willing to pull anyone close enough down with her.

The taste of him went straight to her head, and the heat of his mouth made her tighten her legs around his hips. Cyrus ground against her, and she felt the hard length of him through their clothes, pressing against her sensitive flesh grown tender with desire. He released her wrists and dug his fingers into her hips as he tore his mouth from hers and bit her neck hard enough to bruise.

The pain and pleasure combined drove Alix mad with need. She had taken men to bed before, but had never wanted one like this, enough to tear his clothes off and taste his skin, and beg for more, for anything, so long as the driving need was satisfied.

He kissed her again, rolling his hips against her in a sinuous motion, making the world spin away in a dark tangle of desire so profound she thought she might cry. When his hand curled over her breast, plucking the nipple between thumb and forefinger, her head fell back and her back arched, increasing the pressure, demanding more.

Alix had ceased to be, and there was only this moment, this pleasure that was intense enough that she thought she might die of it, all the more powerful because the bastard was right. She desired him, and she hated herself for it.

A delicate little yawn and a rustle of blankets broke the spell. Cyrus dropped Alix as if she’d burned him and stumbled backward away from her, his green eyes wide with shock and hunger. His shirt hung open, exposing a wide chest covered with short golden hair, his trousers were halfway unbuttoned, and his hands shook.

The deep need that had pooled low in Alix’s belly turned to horror. By the gods, what had she done?

A high-pitched voice said in French, “The meat is burning.”

After touching Alix, there was no point in trying to sleep, so Cyrus took the first watch. Dinner passed in uncomfortable silence. Afterward, through deliberate patience and care, Alix managed to convince the child she was safe. At first, the girl only stared at her, but after about an hour, she made her way across the intervening space until the two lay together on the opposite side of the fire. The child snored with contented little grunts, and Alix curled protectively at her side.

But Alix did not sleep; judging by the stiff set of her shoulders. Good. If he couldn’t rest after their heated interlude, she shouldn’t, either. After all, she’d attacked him and he was still stiff with violent need and unspent energy running through his body like an electric charge.

The roasted meat had not been flavorful enough to wash the taste of her out of his mouth, and the heat of the fire on his face was a warm breeze compared to the scorching feel of her body under his hands. He still pictured her with his waking mind, dark hair tumbled down to her hips, shirt halfway undone, chest heaving, eyes wide with shock, mouth swollen from kissing him. By the moon, he’d been tempted to worship her on the spot. Such heartbreaking beauty could do that to a man.

But recognition drowned her surprised expression in horror as soon as she remembered who they were to one another. For a moment he thought she might vomit, but she only turned away from him, crouched next to the girl, and began talking in a low, soothing voice, leaving him standing alone in the shadows wondering what the hell happened.

Alix was both beautiful and interesting, but he only admired her the way one might admire a bird of prey. Aside from needling her in the cave to make her uncomfortable as his captor, he wasn’t stupid enough to think of or even desire more than cold politeness from her. Why would he? She was hateful, rarely smiled and never laughed, and considered him a monster.

Until she goaded him into a fight and made his blood sing with such vital, pulsing excitement, he knew his life would forever be split between that moment and everything before it. Fighting her had been like dancing with a whirlwind; grace, power, and deadly beauty in his arms. But she was more than a mere force of nature. She was broken.

The Mother Superior hinted at trauma in her past, and her reaction in the apartment confirmed it. He recognized the dazed expression, the frozen limbs, the sweaty palms. He felt all of those things more times than he could count, especially when the memories were upon him.

Broken recognized broken, after all.

Despite that, she wanted him. For a moment, she wanted him enough to ignore her hate. Or, perhaps she wanted the freedom to let go of her rigid self-control, to allow herself to enjoy pleasure she did not have to fight for or justify. Sometimes the desperation to feel anything other than pain made one mad.

The predator in him sensed her weakness and wanted to exploit it, to break her to his will, to coax and tease her until she writhed beneath him with a need only he could satisfy. But years of training taught him to control the darkness inside him, just as he controlled the wolf, and he refused to let the predator have its way.

Alix didn’t show vulnerability in a moment of trust; relived trauma and desperation had dragged it out of her. To take advantage of that would truly make him the monster she accused him of being.

So he sat across the fire and wondered… what would happen if he was careful with her, if he honored that vulnerable moment? Would she begin to trust him, to see him as something other than a monster? Would she be free of the hate driving her? A vision sprang to his mind unbidden, one of Alix smiling and laughing, spinning in a fall breeze as bright leaves floated through the air and tangled in her hair. She ran toward him, dark eyes shining, and threw herself into his arms.

Once he imagined it, the vision would not leave him any peace. He saw her every time he closed his eyes, wanted her with every breath. It made no sense. The woman made him crazy with frustration far more often than she made him hungry with desire, yet the vision would not dissipate.

So he sat in the dark, listening to the sounds of the night, watching her chest rise and fall as he tried to remind himself of all the reasons convincing Alix to be his lover was a terrible idea.

#

Sweat ran in a tickling rivulet down his spine, but the girl clung to his neck and upper back like a tree frog, adding her body heat to the warmth of the sun. They’d been walking for the better part of two days, and while she spoke little, the child had grown bold enough to order the two of them around with pointed fingers, wide eyes, and stamping feet.

After lunch she stood before him, the top of her head reaching only as high as his hip, and pointed at his back with one commanding finger. She accompanied the gesture with a stamp of her bare foot, making a cloud of dust rise around her legs.

“Looks like I’m the pack mule,” he told Alix with a resigned sigh before picking the child up and slinging her across his back like a sack of flour.

She wriggled around and locked her arms comfortably about his neck, each foot nestled against the palms of his hands like stirrups. He could have sworn Alix grinned, but she set off ahead of them at a jog, scouting the road and often circling around through the trees. The woman was so quick and quiet she didn’t make a sound even when navigating the dense underbrush. Even her scent, the healthy sweat of exertion, only reached him when he was downwind.

After a rather long scouting run, she waited for them on the crest of the next hill, her red cloak silhouetted against the sky, and said, “The inn is twenty minutes away.”

“Hear that, lassie?” he asked the girl on his back. “In twenty minutes or so, you shall have a fine room of your own, and plenty of food, and a kind person to take care of you.”

She made a sound of distress and tightened her little arms until they threatened to cut off his circulation. He stopped to pry her arms loose, but she clung to him like a burr to a horse’s tail.

“What seems to be the problem?” Alix asked.

“Our wee lass doesn’t like the thought of staying at the inn, I think,” he said, trying to free himself without hurting her.

Alix stepped closer to look up at the girl’s face, which was smushed against the side of his neck. “Is that true, little one? You don’t want to go to the inn?”

The child squeezed and Cyrus fought not to make a choking sound. The little beastie was strong. Alix stared at her for several long seconds, then reached down and untied the sheath of one silver dagger, lifting it for the girl to see.

“This is my favorite dagger. It is made of silver, and carved with magic runes to keep it strong. Do you know what it’s for?”

Her little head rubbed against his neck as she shook it.

Alix pulled the blade just far enough from the sheath to show the metallic sheen. “Silver is for killing werewolves and other magical creatures of the night, but only those tied to the moon. And this dagger has killed too many werewolves to count.”

The girl’s grip loosened, and she sat up a bit, finally interested.

“I have been looking for someone to take care of it for me for a while, someone who will only use it on werewolves, or to protect themselves. Silver knives are special, and should never be used in anger, or on the innocent. Do you know of anyone who would keep my knife for me?”

A nod.

Alix smiled at the girl. It was a small tender, genuine smile, not one of the smirks she often threw at him like daggers. And her smile, though not aimed at him, was just as potent as he imagined it would be. His chest tightened.

“I am glad to hear it,” Alix said, tapping the tip of the girl’s nose with one finger. “Who should I give it to for safekeeping?”

The girl released him and stretched out one bony little arm.

“You?”

A nod.

“Well,” —Alix tapped her chin, pretending to think it over— “I suppose that might work, but there is one problem. I only lend my weapons to people I trust, and I don’t know your name yet.”

One arm tightened around his neck, and the extended arm dropped in disappointment, but Alix waited. After several heartbeats, a tiny voice said in his ear, “Mercedes.”

“Mercedes,” Alix repeated, holding out her hand. “I am Alix La Rouge.”

After a moment of hesitation, Mercedes held out her hand, and Alix took it.

“Nice to meet you. Would you rather hold the knife now or wait until we reach the inn?”

Mercedes’ fingers extended, wiggling impatiently, and Alix chuckled before tying the handle down so it could not be drawn. She offered it to the girl.

As soon as she held the knife, Mercedes sagged against his back and sighed. He hadn’t realized how tense she’d been. Now she had something with which to defend herself, and her relief was palpable. He wished he’d thought of offering her some kind of weapon two days ago when she was wrapped around him like a boa constrictor.

Twenty minutes later, they entered the yard of the inn. The squat, two-story building crouched on the edge of a clearing near the road, weather-worn grey shingles and cracking plaster making the place look like a grumpy old man glaring down at travelers as they passed. Several horses took turns at a trough while wagons parked along the roadside. Drivers secured feed bags to the heads of their mules as men stained with road dust trailed in and out of the building.

Sour beer, rising bread, sweat, leather, horse shit, and roasting meat combined to fill the air with a smell unique to countryside inns. Cyrus had not stopped traveling since the destruction of his village, and life on the road made inns the next closest thing to home, but this place did not hold the peace and comfort he hoped for. It was bursting at the seams with exactly the kind of people he hoped to avoid.

“This is going to be dangerous,” he told Alix, hoping Mercedes was listening. “There are at least two large parties here, and none of them appear genteel. You are a beautiful woman and they are likely lonely, so keep your hood up and try not to…” his words trailed off as he looked at her.

Alix wore men’s clothing for practicality, which showed her lean, muscled form to advantage and hugged her body enough to be revealing. Snug clothing made sense from a fighter’s perspective, but the kind of men drinking in the inn would not see Alix’s clothing as a concession to practicality. They would likely consider it an invitation.

“I appreciate the thought, wolf, but I can promise you those men will bother me no more than they will bother you. And if they are foolish enough to approach me, I am quite capable of discouraging them.”

“I never doubted that,” he said wryly. “But I would prefer not to frighten the innkeeper away from sharing information with us by killing his patrons.”

Alix shrugged and said, “We will simply have to deal with whatever happens, won’t we?” before swirling the cloak around her body, covering her tempting curves–and weapons–from view. She spun and led him out of the sunshine and into the dark, fragrant roadside inn.

Despite being alone in the middle of nowhere, the inn was well built. Sawn wood plank floors, a proper bar with a tap and an oven, and a river rock fireplace with a hearth big enough to stand in made the place a haven of comfort for weary travelers. He took a deep breath; carrots, celery, garlic, rosemary and... rabbit stew? The smell almost made the noise—pints thumping on wooden tables, chatter and laughter, silverware scraping, and a few drunken snores—worth enduring. But every table was full, so Cyrus carried Mercedes to the foot of the stairs and sat on the bottom step so she could climb down while Alix approached the bar.

The men at the edges of the room followed her with their eyes, but the men closest to her, the ones who saw her face, blanched and looked away. When she pressed in next to them at the bar, they stared at her in admiration for a moment, then leaned away and tried not to look in her direction.

Their reactions were so curious, Cyrus began to wonder if they were looking at the same woman. But before he examined that thought too long, another woman entered the inn. Her hair, the color of bitter chocolate, lay in a braid over her shoulder, and she walked with the graceful confidence of nobility. She was not striking but had appealing features and an amused, engaging expression. She wore the kind of utilitarian clothing one might see on safari, and carried an umbrella, of all things.

Eyes that followed Alix minutes before now locked on the shorter woman with speculation, roaming up and down her figure as she joined the crowd at the bar. Two burly men with sunburned faces and rolled-up shirtsleeves, miners by the look of their muscled forearms, watched her with particular interest and nudged one another with raised eyebrows.

“Here you are,” Alix said, appearing in front of them with mugs of beer in one hand and a bowl of rabbit stew in the other.

Cyrus drank half the mug in one swallow and watched from the corner of his eye as Mercedes ate spoonful after spoonful of stew.

“Careful, lass,” he told her. “Don’t make yourself sick, now.”

She was likely past the danger of harm, and had been well-fed since they discovered her, but still ate as if every meal may be her last.

“The innkeeper has agreed to speak with us once the customers are served,” Alix said, leaning against the wall and swallowing a mouthful of beer.

“That calls for more bowls of stew then,” Cyrus said, standing. “Will you have one?”

Alix raised an eyebrow, as if their coldly professional relationship did not prepare her for the extravagant kindness of being offered a simple bowl of soup.

“Yes, please,” she said, at last.

The barkeep, a stout elf woman with rosy cheeks, a businesslike expression, and several earrings in each ear, had dark tattoos peeking out from beneath her shirtsleeves. When Cyrus approached, she held up one finger for him to wait while she pulled two more mugs of beer, handing one to the brunette and the other to a dwarvish man with shoulders like a bull.

“I told your woman I’d speak with you once I finished service,” she told him as she snapped a hand towel and tossed one end over her shoulder.

“So you did. I’ve only come to ask for two more bowls of stew if there is any more to go around.”

“There is, but it will cost you four copper pennies,” she said, turning away to lift clean wooden bowls from a pile.

He counted the money out and waited.

“I’ll be slagged,” the dwarven man said, looking him up and down. “You’re about a giant, aren’t ya?”

“As close to one as you are likely to meet,” Cyrus agreed.

“And strong, too, I’d wager. How is it the mines haven’t snapped you up yet?”

“What makes you think they haven’t?”

“Well–” the stranger began, sounding embarrassed, but a soft, feminine voice said with some amusement, “Anyone with eyes can see you are no miner, my large friend, so if you are going to lie, you ought to pick a different profession.”

Two bowls of hot stew hit the counter in front of him with a thud, but he ignored them and turned toward the lady, for she could be nothing other than a member of the aristocracy, given her bearing. Alix’s eyes were a shade of brown resembling sunlight through dark whisky, but hers were the deep, rich color of newly turned earth, and they sparkled with mischief.

“My lady,” he said with a half bow. “What profession should I choose if I want to be a successful liar?”

“Is this a challenge, sir?”

“If you’d like to take it as such.”

She folded her arms and took half a step back to get a good look at him. Her eyes cataloged everything, so he raised his arms and did a full, slow turn. One of the men whistled, and his table burst into laughter.

The lady nodded once to herself, took a deep pull from her mug, and wiped the foam from the corner of her mouth with her fingertips.

“Very well,” she said. “But if I guess correctly, you owe me something dreadfully valuable.”

“Like what?”

“How does your firstborn child sound?”

He laughed. “That’s the way they do it in stories, and I would be a cad to deny the sensible request of a lady who has fairly solved a riddle. Alright, my firstborn is yours.”

She smirked, which made a dimple appear in her right cheek, and returned his bow. “Challenge accepted, then.” She cleared her throat. “Most men with height and brawn like yours avoid boring, indoor jobs, and your tan, as well as the wrinkles at the corners of your eyes, suggest that you work out of doors. Your clothes are worn but well cared for, and the material is rather fine, as is the leather of your boots. Though the soles are worn. So, your occupation earns you more money than the average laborer, and you travel a great deal on foot. The calluses on your hands are not of the thick sort belonging to woodsmen or blacksmiths, and the scars on your knuckles suggest you use your hands for violence, rather than a traditional outdoor trade.”

Half of the patrons stopped talking and turned to listen to the woman with raised eyebrows.

“You do not carry the weapons of a professional hunter, though the scuffs on your belt indicate that when you do shoot, you prefer a pistol and are a right-handed draw. If I were to guess…”

Her eyes took on a faraway look, replaced a moment later by a troubled expression. Had she guessed his true nature? Surely not. She opened her mouth, closed it, and winced. “You know, I do believe you have stumped me,” she said a moment later with a weak smile. “It appears your firstborn child is safe, sir.”

The audience made sounds of disappointment and returned to their conversations, but he didn’t take his eyes off the strange woman who had, in fact, read him like a book. But he got the impression she did not like whatever she’d seen.

He bent down and said, “For the record, you were right about every observation. So, chances are, you are right about whatever conclusion you’ve come to.” He picked up the bowls and winked at her. “But I don’t bite, I promise.”

She chuckled, and the unease drifted away, leaving her smiling as she raised her glass in salute and said, “That is a relief. But I should warn you… I do.”

Cyrus threw back his head and laughed. He was still grinning when he rejoined Alix and Mercedes. The former remained leaning against the wall, but her arms were folded over her chest and her eyes glowed with irritation.

She snatched the bowl from him fast enough to spill hot stew over her fingers. “I do not know what you consider professional,” she hissed, “but taking strange women to bed on the job does not qualify.”

Cyrus did not bother to hide his confusion. “What?”

“We do not have time for you to flirt your way across the countryside, wolf, so try to control yourself until this job is done.”

By the bloody moon, was Alix… jealous?

Cyrus shook his head and tried not to laugh, knowing it would only infuriate her. If he pushed his luck, she might add rabbit stew to the road dust already coating his clothes. “That was nothing but a bit of friendly jousting.”

“Oh, is that what you call it?”

“Have you never laughed with a stranger just for the pleasure of company, minx?”

“Of course not. And don’t call me that.”

“What you saw,” he said, gesturing to the bar with his thumb, “was a mere bit of fun. I need no ulterior motive to enjoy the company of a clever person. And laughs are hard enough to come by in this world. I will take them where I can and be glad of it.”

Alix only eyed him as if he were mad, which made him want to nettle her a bit, so he added, “If it makes you feel any better, I would rather gaze at you in unrequited adoration than flirt with a hundred women.”

His words had the intended effect. She scowled at him, but her cheeks glowed with color, and she turned all her attention to her stew, ignoring him as if he did not exist.

He was not sure why, but that felt like a victory.

Mercedes handed back her empty bowl and lifted both arms, wiggling her fingers and staring at his stew. It looked like he wasn’t eating alone.

If the innkeeper did not meet with them soon, Alix was determined to leave the building and let Cyrus handle the rest. There was no escape from squeaking chairs and laughter, thumping mugs, sloshing drinks, scratching flatware, scraping, coughing, and the overwhelming sharp stink of sweat, leather, oiled metal, sour beer, bad breath, and yeasty bread.

Her skin crawled with the need to get away and into the open air.

Not to mention the strange, pretty brunette at the bar. Something was wrong with the woman who ate her stew and bread if she sat in a fancy restaurant in Paris instead of a backwater tavern in the middle of nowhere. She did not smell right, and she moved too quickly, too gracefully, more like an elf than a human.

Cyrus hadn’t so much as glanced in the woman’s direction since returning with the stew, choosing to give Mercedes all of his attention, but Alix found her eyes continually drawn to the bar. If the woman was a vampire, Alix would have smelled it. There were a dozen other rare monsters creeping about the wilds of Europe, but Alix ran down the list of qualities identifying each monster, and none of them fit… so what was she? Was she dangerous? Not knowing made her want to hold the woman down and demand answers.

The innkeeper stepped out from behind the bar and motioned to the stairs.“There we are. Let’s talk somewhere quieter, eh?” 

Alix breathed a secret sigh of relief as Cyrus lifted Mercedes into his arms and led them up the narrow staircase to a small, empty bedroom at the back of the building. He set the girl down on the bed while Alix motioned the elf woman into the room, watching the hallway to ensure no one followed.

The innkeeper eyed them both, put her hands on her hips, and said, “What is it I can do for you? Keep in mind, I have customers and little time for idle chat.”

Cyrus held out his hand. “My name is Cyrus, and this is my associate, Alix.”

She eyed Cyrus up and down once before shaking his hand. Alix didn’t blame her for a bit of caution. “I am Fleur, and this here is my place. What do you want?”

“This,” Cyrus said, gesturing to the child, “is Mercedes. Her village was a couple of days’ walk East of here.”

“Was?”

“Werewolves attacked maybe two weeks ago, as far as we can tell. There isn’t much left.”

“A whole village?” She asked, hand on her heart. “Are you certain it was not The Beast?”

After a beat of surprised silence, Alix said. “It was several werewolves. I am certain of this.”

Fleur’s hard expression melted away and her eyes filled with concern. “Root and stone, the poor dear. That would be Mont Blanc? I wondered why we’ve seen no traffic from there in the last couple of weeks. How many people… no, don’t answer.”

Cyrus nodded. “We found Mercedes hiding in the village. She needs looking after.”

“She seems comfortable enough with you.”

“Aye, but we need to hunt down the monsters before they destroy more towns.”

Fleur considered that, sighed, then pulled the dish towel off her shoulder, running the worn fabric between her fingers. “And the woods are no place for a child. You two are Hunters, then?”

Alix shot Cyrus a surprised glance. Hunters had grown less common as the boots of technology and industry crushed magic out of the world, and few modern people knew of them. Those who did were either the ones holding the purse strings or those who lived in particularly dangerous locations.

This Inn was remote, but so far as Alix knew, it was no more dangerous than any other part of the French countryside. So how did an innkeeper know what they were?

“Living apart from society doesn’t make me ignorant,” Fleur said, noting the glance they shared and folding her arms. “Don’t look so surprised. Those werewolves aren’t the first monsters to come through here, and you aren’t the first hunters, either.”

“Fair enough,” Cyrus said.

“But you say you’re going to stop them?”

“We are. Permanently.”

Fleur frowned. “My inn is fairly prosperous, as these things go. But it costs a painful amount to ship goods this far, and I can’t pay your rates. Leastways, I can’t pay you the rates the last hunters asked for.”

“Actually,” Alix said, “we were hoping to pay you.”

Fleur’s hands stilled, her brows rose, and she shot a glance at Mercedes, who was turning the silver knife sheath over and over in her tiny hands, seemingly oblivious to the conversation. “I see.”

“We intend to send word to the Sisters of St. Christopher to have someone fetch her. She’ll be safe there, but we cannot spare the time to bring her. We hoped you might send a message to the convent, and rent a room and board for the girl while she waits.”

“That,” Cyrus added, “and safety. I intend to make sure this child stays safe. I would be very irritated with anyone who endangered her.”

Fleur puffed up like an angry cat and shook her towel in Cyrus’ face. “You will watch your tone, sir. And if you insult me again in my own establishment, I will have you thrown out on your ear. I don’t care how big you are.”

Cyrus smiled. “Your response was all the proof I needed, ma’am. Please forgive the insinuation.”

She looked taken aback, and realized too late that Cyrus had merely been testing her resolve. A sheepish expression perched on her face for a moment, then flew off and left resolve in its place.

“I never cared for a child before, but children are only small people, after all. And I suppose she can sit behind the bar while I work. She’ll be safe enough while we wait for someone to fetch her. Besides, Horace has a soft spot for little ones and he won’t stand for any nonsense.”

“Horace?” Alix asked.

Fleur smiled while leaning half out the door to yell, “Horace!”

A series of thumps and scratches echoed up the stairs, followed by a fwoosh of huge wings. Alix drew both pistols and set herself between Mercedes and the hallway as a griffin the size of a huge dog padded into the room.

“Oh, don’t worry about Horace,” Fleur said, patting one of the beast’s heavy shoulders affectionately. “He won’t hurt you so long as you don’t disturb the peace and play nice with everyone.”

Alix stared at the animal, unblinking. It had the sleek, muscled body of a hound, with the paws of a big cat. Both hawk-like wings were tucked neatly against its sides, and its head was similar in shape to a cat’s but with the curved beak of a raptor and large, gold, forward-facing eyes. A pair of ears, longer than a cat’s, were pricked high and swiveling as it listened to the room and looked at each one of them.

“Found him when he was a fledgeling,” Fleur said with pride. “Some fool shot his maman, and he wasn’t big enough to feed himself. Been with me ever since.”

“And he follows commands?” Cyrus asked, eyeing the beast warily and taking half a step to the right, putting himself between Alix and the wickedly curved beak, as if she needed his protection. She scowled, but didn’t take her eyes off the creature.

“Oh, well enough. Leastways, he knows who is trouble and who isn’t.”

“If he hurts the girl,” Alix began, but Fleur scoffed and waved a dismissive hand.

“He’s gentle as a mother hen with babes.”

They haggled for a while over the price of room and board while Horace slowly made his way onto the bed: first his head, then head and paws, and then his whole torso, giving the girl time to get used to his presence. Mercedes was shy at first, fingers wrapped around the hilt of Alix’s blade. But the big gold eyes were almost hypnotic, and soon she reached out with one tentative hand and ran her fingers over the creature’s fur. It shivered and closed its eyes with a rumbling purr.

Once she petted his head, no one else in the room existed. And by the time Cyrus and Fleur agreed to a payment, the beast and the girl were curled into a comfortable ball, snoring, with her arms wrapped around Horace’s neck.

Fleur leaned down and stroked the animal’s sleek head. It raised one ear and opened a single eye, which swiveled around to meet hers. “You protect her,” she told him, patting his neck before heading back downstairs.

But Alix was not so eager to leave. She stood in the doorway, watching the rise and fall of the cinnamon-colored hide and noting how carefully Horace cradled the little girl. The two of them looked peaceful, wrapped in a cocoon of warmth and safety.

“We won’t get to say goodbye,” Cyrus said. Was that a wistful tone in his voice?

“Are you going soft, wolf?”

“For a wee bairn? Aye, maybe. And I do feel responsible for her. Besides, you haven’t got a heart of stone, either, minx. The two of you were curled up much the same way by the fire, so don’t behave as if you’re not a bit soft, as well.”

Alix didn’t bother to deny it. The girl had needed comfort, and Alix was honest enough with herself to admit she needed it, too. Mercedes’ circumstances had dragged to light many memories Alix did not wish to revisit, memories so sharp that living with them forced her to become tough as rawhide.

For a couple of nights, the girl slept in her arms, and the two of them kept the memories away. It had been a long time since anyone trusted her enough to sleep so close, close enough for the comfort of human warmth. If Mercedes had not just been traumatized, she would likely have shied away from Alix the way everyone else did.

Mortals may not look at her face and see her vampire parentage, but they sensed it, smelled it, felt the person they were looking at was not right, not normal. Not safe. Fleur was one of the rare few confident enough to remain unbothered.

Now and then, when she was truly lonely, Alix would wait for nightfall and seek comfort in the arms of anyone who was braver than the rest, a rare soul who found her more appealing than disturbing.

Perhaps they simply enjoyed the fear of knowing, on an elemental level, that they were in mortal danger when she was near. Some people found such things exhilarating, and Alix would accept that so long as it kept the darkness at bay a while longer. But those trysts only lasted an hour or two.

Afterward, she was back to being alone.

“Oh, hell,” Cyrus said, and pulled her into his arms.

Alix pressed her blade against his throat before his lips touched hers, but that didn’t stop him. He captured her mouth in a tender kiss; a question, not a demand, and she found herself kissing him back without meaning to, answering with her lips and tongue.

For a moment, the world blazed to life, and the warmth burned away the lurking shadows haunting the corners of her soul.

At least, until she realized she was kissing the damned wolf. She pulled away, grimacing. Cyrus let her go, watching her eyes drift to the bead of blood running down his neck. She started to apologize, stopped, and scowled at him as her grip on the knife tightened.

“Spearmint,” he said.

All violent thoughts ground to a halt. “What?”

“You taste of spearmint.”

She blinked and said dumbly, “I just ate rabbit stew.”

“Aye, but so did I. The flavors cancel each other out, and spearmint was left over.”

“Flavors don’t cancel each–no, wait,” she shook her head to clear it. What had she wanted to say? Oh yes. A warning. A warning was good, because if she killed the wolf now, that would frighten the child and leave a terrible mess for Fleur, so Alix said, “Let me be clear about this so that I am not forced to kill you before this mission is over: stay away from me.”

“Aren’t you exaggerating a bit?”

“Look at your neck and ask me again.”

He wiped the blood away and shrugged. “It was worth it.”

“You’re lucky it wasn’t worse, you great bloody idiot. ”

“I couldn’t help it,” he said in his own defense, raising his hands but smiling ever so slightly. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, don’t stand around looking so forlorn. Anyone else would have done the same.”

“No, they would not,” she said, sheathing the knife. “Everyone else has more sense.”

He opened then closed his mouth and cocked his head. His brow raised for a moment before drawing down in displeasure.

“Damn,” he said, then passed her without brushing her body with his and skipped lightly down the steps.

A feminine voice floated up the stairs. “I realize large words can be hard to understand, so let me say this clearly using single syllables: If you touch me, it will be the last thing you ever do with that hand.”

Shit.

Alix followed Cyrus to the bar to survey the scene. One of the burly miners had pushed his way up close to the brunette woman, much to the amusement of his companions at the table. He must not have realized she wasn’t entirely human, because he stared down at her with proprietary amusement and said, “Come now, you did that mind trick for the big fellow. I only want my turn, sweetheart, that’s all.”

As he spoke, he grabbed the woman’s upper arm. Cyrus made a growling noise and started across the room, but long before he reached the bar, the woman change her posture. It was subtle, like watching a cat about to spring. Her weight and balance changed, becoming more centered, and her shoulders shifted. She was going to punch the miner in the face.

Scars decorated the man’s knuckles and face the way bright colors warned of poisonous animals. He had been in enough fights to notice the change in her balance, because his amused expression faded and he let go of her arm. But he wasn’t fast enough. In a blur, the woman grabbed his wrist with her left hand, turned, and executed some movement Alix had never seen. The man dropped to his knees with a surprised exclamation, his back to her as she twisted his arm up between his shoulder blades with his wrist pressed inward.

“Please don’t struggle,” she said in a tired voice. “You will break your own arm, and then I shall feel guilty for it, and both our days will be ruined.”

Cyrus reached them, gestured to the man, and said, “May I?”

The woman looked up at him with a tired smile. “By all means.”

Cyrus hauled the man up by the scruff of his neck and carried him out the door.

Alix watched them go, then turned to the woman and said, “You handled that well.”

“One learns all kinds of useful things when one travels,” the woman replied with a dimpled smile. “Please thank your husband for me.”

“He is not my husband.”

“Oh!” her cheeks turned rosy, and she sent a quick, speculative glance out the door. “Please, Forgive my mistake.”

Alix nodded in a mixture of acceptance and goodbye, then handed a purse to the innkeeper. Fleur weighed it on her palm and dropped it into her apron pocket. “I’ll send a messenger to the convent tomorrow morning.”

“If you don’t mind,” Alix said, turning to see Cyrus still chastising the miner, “may I ask you a few questions before we go?”

Fleur’s eyes roamed over the tables. The crowd had thinned significantly as travelers returned to their carts, so she nodded. “Go ahead.”

“You said Hunters have been through here before. Can you tell me when?”

“It must be three, four months ago.”

“Did they say what they were hunting?”

Fleur rubbed a hand on the back of her neck and rolled her eyes upward as she thought. “They said The Beast had returned. And with so many deaths in the country, who was I to argue? Werewolves never kill so many.”

“It was not The Beast. That creature is long dead, I promise you. How many have died?”

“Must be more than threescore if you believe the rumors.”

Over sixty? That outstripped Mother Superior’s estimates by a significant margin. “Did they say where they were going to look?”

“East,” she said, “further into the mountains.” Her eyes scanned the room again, cataloging each patron and judging when to refill pints, retrieve plates, and who would need to be refused more beer. Once she was satisfied, she said, “You are certain it was not The Beast? I still remember the fear, though I was young. It seemed to be everywhere, killing and attacking across the countryside. Doing even common things was hard, as you felt the Beast may attack at any moment.”

“No, it is not The Beast. That creature is long dead.” Alix knew this because she had killed it, though the credit had gone to another. But Fleur was right about the fear; after nearly one hundred deaths, the countryside stank of it, and the Beast of Gévaudan was all anyone could think about or speak of.

It had, in fact, been a barghest, and a rather nasty one, something like a mix between a wolf and a hyena. Killing it had not been easy, particularly with the King’s elderly gun bearer tagging along.

“Well, you would know,” Fleur said, snapping her hand towel and settling it over one shoulder. “And so, time for work. Stop in when you are done, if you have news.”

Alix nodded and followed Cyrus into the yard. He stood with his arms crossed and feet planted apart, watching the foolish miner and his companions ride away while casting resentful glances over their shoulders.

“You have made enemies of them,” she warned.

“How will I sleep at night?”

“Arrogance is foolish. It will get you killed.”

“I’m traveling with La Manteau Rouge and you expect me to fear a few miners?”

She looked him over with an appraising eye. “Maybe you aren’t as stupid as you look.”

He barked a laugh and slung his pack over his back. “Let’s pester the locals a bit before we head out. I want to learn more about what has been happening.”

“I’ll leave that to you, wolf” Alix said, shouldering her own back and settling it atop her cloak. The locals wouldn’t speak to her, anyway. “I’ll scout the area.”

“Suit yourself, minx.”

“Don’t call me that,” she said as he turned and walked back into the inn. The damned man made her blood boil, so she strode into the trees, scowling. She needed to find something to kill.

Not even the most dedicated gossips in the salons of Paris could match the trappers, hunters, woodcutters, and miners of the backcountry for pure vocal stamina. They spent days and weeks without hearing another voice, packing away their thoughts until a friendly inn and a pint of beer loosened their tongues enough for the words to come spilling out.

The rough men, with calloused hands and sunburned cheeks, talked about the rumors of monsters, sounds in the night, and abandoned homesteads. One garrulous old man with a patchy white beard and a few missing fingers even mentioned watching through the window of his cabin as a pack of dark shadows crept across an open field.

Cyrus heard it all and made sense of none of it. He could think of nothing but how Alix felt in his arms; the heat of her mouth, the way her body molded to his. She had not even attacked him this time. He bled a little, yes, but his head was still attached. It was worth it.

What had compelled him to kiss her, he could not say. Maybe it was the desolate longing in her eyes as she watched Mercedes and the griffon sleep. The desire to comfort her began when she stood in the doorway of the little apartment in Mont Blanc, memories of pain etched on her face and every line of stiff muscle. And seeing the sad longing in her eyes today as she stared at the child scraped something raw in his chest. He acted without thinking. Now he couldn’t focus on the conversations around him because he wanted to lope into the forest and find her. 

When had he started wanting Alix more than he disliked her?

“And then he disappeared,” a woodcutter said to his table partner over his third pint. “He said they swindled him out of his share of the mine, but I think he just made a bad deal and regretted it when the money came in.”

“Gerard worked that claim for two years. He’s entitled to something.”

The woodcutter shrugged and wiped beer foam off his chin. “Not according to the contract. But there he was, swearing to get revenge. If you want to know what I think, he’s at the bottom of a canyon, somewhere with a broken neck.”

Cyrus swallowed the warm dregs of beer at the bottom of his glass, dropped a coin on the table and left. Instead of piecing the bits of overheard conversation into a cohesive story that would give him insight into their mission, he thought of a pair of light brown eyes. What was wrong with him?

That was a stupid question, he knew what the problem was: despite her prickly nature, his partner had gotten under his skin. That was dangerous for them both. The sooner this job was done, the better.

He stood on the packed dirt and took a few deep breaths to test the wind. Spearmint, sharp and fresh, led him into the forest at a jog. Less than half a mile away, he found Alix crouched in the shade at the edge of a clearing, plucking leaves from a low bush. She popped some into her mouth before dropping the rest into her pocket.

As she closed her eyes and chewed, the knife-edged expression she often wore melted beneath the warmth of an unguarded, gentle smile. It transformed her face, revealing beauty that made his chest tight and his breath stop. Seeing her there, peaceful in the dappled sunlight, was like getting a glimpse of the woman she might have been without whatever trauma had stolen her innocence. 

The wind shifted, and Alix stiffened when she caught his scent. The carefully guarded mask fell back into place as she stood and brushed off her hands.

“Any sign?” he asked, blurting the words before she could set the tone with something more confrontational.

She sighed. “Nothing worth troubling about, though there are far too many predators in the area. This forest could use a unicorn to keep things in balance.”

“I’ll be certain to suggest that to the next unicorn I meet.”

She either snorted or laughed, but since he saw a flash of amusement in her eyes, he counted it as laughing, and smiled in return. Her amusement disappeared.

“Any luck with the local rabble?” She said in a business-like voice as she stood and dusted her hands on her pant legs.

He folded his arms and leaned his shoulder against the trunk of a tree. Could he recapture that moment of easygoing humor? Was it even worth trying? “Impossible to tell. Wild folk are always superstitious, and a miner may turn an owl into a harpy after being alone for weeks. But they are worried enough to suspect their neighbors. And in a tightly-knit community like this, that is never a good sign.”

“The fear has made them wary. Fleur asked me if The Beast had returned.”

“The beast? Of Gevaudan? That monster has been dead for a hundred a forty years.”

“I understand her fear, even if it is based on a faulty conclusion,” Alix said with a shrug. “The deaths and strange signs, coupled with so many hunters in the area, make the Beast sound like a reasonable explanation. After all, werewolves don’t behave this way, and the Beast casted a long shadow.”

That creature had been one of his greatest disappointments. Word of the elusive monster spread across the continent, and Cyrus returned early from Austria to hunt it, in part because of the rising death toll, and in part because the King’s six-thousand livre bounty would have come in handy just then. 

But by the time he reached France, they had declared the creature dead, with signs and flyers nailed to every available surface. Cyrus had been rather disappointed. But that was a century and a half ago. And from the way she spoke… he knew Alix was not precisely human, with strange blood and accelerated healing, but was there more to uncover? 

He asked, a little too casually, “You don’t believe the Beast has returned, then?”

Alix rolled her eyes and passed him, heading for the road and saying over her shoulder, “When I kill something, wolf, it stays dead.”

“That was you?

“Someone had to kill it.”

Cyrus clenched his jaw as his heart rate picked up. The Beast had been killed around 1760. If Alix was not lying, and he didn’t think she was, then she was over one hundred and thirty years old. Dwarves lived that long, and elves longer. Humans did not.

What was she? No werewolf, not even from a true line. She might be half-elven, he supposed, which would account for her speed and grace, but half-elves aged faster than their elven family members, and at more than one-hundred and thirty years, she would show signs of age. 

“How old are you?” he asked, catching up.

“What a rude question. Then again, why should I expect manners from you?”

“If you expect me to believe you killed the Beast, you’d better be able to prove it.”

“I do not care what you believe.”

“Then why brag about it?”

“So you will know what I am capable of when you run off at the mouth.”

This woman was going to drive him mad. He had known no one so capable of making his blood boil, and the irritation forced him to take a track that usually worked to ruffle her feathers. “The last time we spoke of what I could do with my mouth, you turned my offer down. Am I to understand you’ve changed your mind?”

This time, it was her heartbeat that picked up, but she disguised it masterfully when she scoffed and raised a derisive brow. “Why on earth would I do that? Your last unwelcome attempt was so unimpressive, I nearly cut your throat. Why not save both of us the disappointment and keep your mouth shut?”

Cyrus could not tell if he wanted to strangle the woman or kiss her senseless, but he found himself leaning down till his nose touched the delicate shell of her ear to say, “I’m going to make you eat those words, minx, and you’re going to enjoy every second of it. And so shall I.”

Alix pretended not to hear him, but she swallowed, her cheeks flaming, pupils dilated. “I warned you what would happen if you did not stay away from me,” she said, but there was a quavering edge to her voice.

“I won’t touch you that way until ask it of me,” he said. “And you will ask me. Mark my words.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No. Call it a premonition, if you like. In the meantime, I’ll race you to Mont Blanc.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “I will do no such stupid thing,” but she was speaking to empty air.

Cyrus needed to move, to work muscles tense from the mental image his damned impulsive brain had conjured up when he said something he should not have said. It appeared he was not smart enough to keep his mouth shut, not where Alix was concerned.

When she flung insults at him he could not stomach, he found himself willing to say or do nearly anything to even the playing field. Even if that meant threatening to spread her legs and bury his face between her thighs.

By the moon, just the thought of it made all the blood rush between his own legs. A good run should work all of that unspent energy out of his system. He focused on the wind in his face, the stretch and pull of his muscles, and relaxed into the comforting motion. Cyrus let the familiar repetition of his feet and breathing dull his thoughts as the mountainous landscape passed by in a blur. 

Peace stole over him…until a streak of red shot past, leaving dust and the faint hint of spearmint behind. Alix disappeared around the next bend, laughing, though he could not tell if it was scorn or joy.

Prey, his wolf howled from a chamber deep within his chest. Chase her, savage her, show her that a wolf was born to run. A spike of adrenaline electrified every muscle as the thrill of the chase sang in his blood.

So, she thought she could outrun a wolf, did she?

With a grin, Cyrus sank into his body, leaving his brain to fend for itself, and ran. He followed her scent; sharp sweat, leather, wool, spearmint and rabbit stew, and the promising musk of her desire. His feet hardly touched the ground. Running? No, he was flying.

His prey came into sight, a red blur on the path ahead, cape fluttering behind like the broken wing of a cardinal. Vulnerable, and not fast enough to escape him. A growl of pleasure, deep in his chest, made his prey look over her shoulder; eyes wide, cheeks flushed, lips parted, chest heaving. 

“I’m going to run you to ground, minx,” he said.

Her amber eyes—hawks eyes—narrowed, and she smiled, showing him sharp white teeth before darting into the forest. Alix may be fast, but he owned this wild land, was created to hunt beyond the borders of civilization, ghosting through the night on soundless feet with the wind in his fur. His blood sang a song older than time, of pumping muscles and hunger, and the thrill of the chase. They darted between trees as darkness fell, the forest silent but for their breath and pounding hearts, as if nature itself waited in anticipation.

The new moon left the world shrouded in darkness, but not to Cyrus. Every flash of her long legs, of her hair trailing between branches, was clear to him as mid-day. She laughed at him over her shoulder, and in the shadow of the canopy, her pale face shone like the moon, drawing him onward. But she was not fast enough.

He closed in.

They broke from the underbrush less than ten feet apart, flying across a grassy meadow with a million stars overhead. She was close enough to taste, sweat and adrenaline sharp in the air, heady as wine. The certainty of the kill made his muscles tense, his legs bunch. He sprang and wrapped both arms around her chest.

Cyrus turned in midair, and they hit the ground on his back and rolled in a tangle of limbs. Alix was safe in the cradle of his arms as they tumbled, crushing the sweet grass beneath their bodies and sending forest pixies flashing into the sky, a hundred shining green lights mimicking the stars.

Breathless laughter followed the pixies, floating into the air with their mingled breath as they rolled to a stop. Alix stretched out above him, covering him from chest to knees, her entire body alive with the thrill of the chase, each curve of her body filling a hollow of his, two puzzle pieces shaped to match.

Cyrus wanted to devour her, to kiss her smiling mouth and bury himself inside her until they both died of pleasure. Her hair had come loose during their chase, and hung in a black curtain down her shoulder and across his chest as she stared down at him.

Her eyes glowed like fire through a glass of whiskey.

By the moon, she was beautiful. And when she smiled like that… he reached up and cupped her cheek. The smile disappeared. The fire died.

She licked her lips, but not in anticipation. “You said you would not touch me unless I asked you,” she reminded him in a breathless whisper.

Disappointment tightened his throat, and he dropped his hand. “Forgive me,” he said, forcing the words out. “The chase got the best of me. It won’t happen again.”

Alix nodded, then rolled off him and disappeared into the shadows.

Cyrus lay in the grass and watched the disturbed pixies drift back down to wrap themselves in leaves or flower petals to sleep, the night going dark again as their lights winked out.

What the hell just happened? It was well past midnight, and he didn’t even know where they were.

He hadn’t lost himself to the hunt since he was sixteen years old and running through the forest for the first time in his wolf form. At least then his elders kept him in check, teaching him how to balance man and magic, how not to lose himself in the physical joy of overwhelming sensations. But no one had been there to protect him, tonight. He would have heeded no warning, anyway.

Running with Alix as freely as flying, the smell of her mixed with grass and pine, had been as addictive as any drug. The thought scared him, but he was very much afraid it was too late to pretend he didn’t like the taste of it. 

How much time had passed since they started running?

His body had not been his own; it had belonged to her and the night and the thrill of being alive. And when she laughed and smiled down at him–he wanted that feeling back, wanted it enough that his chest felt too small to contain it.

Now she was gone, and he was alone, and this time he would not chase her.

At least, not yet.

Following werewolf tracks out of the village of Mont Blanc and further into the mountains turned out to be harder than she expected. They’d lost the trail over a scree slide and found it again halfway up a rocky slope, breaking through an unused pass across the mountain.

It was slow going as they worked their way up the steep path, watching for sign while grunting and sweating as they climbed. At least, Cyrus grunted and sweated. Even swore a few times.

But Alix did her best not to say a word.

When he’d challenged her to the race yesterday, she rolled her eyes as he disappeared into the forest. She would not be drawn into a pointless exercise by such a contrived provocation.

But something in her, something young and stupid, rebelled at the idea of letting him win. He was too confident already, and she was faster. But as he bounded through the trees, graceful as a stag with ecstatic joy on his face, her soul cried out with the desire to join the chase; to cast aside worry and self-control, to abandon her constant vigilance and simply run for the pleasure of it.

That night she learned, for the first time, what it felt like to be caught by someone strong enough to challenge her… and she liked it; liked the sense of his presence behind her, the promise of danger, the contest of wills. If he hadn’t released her, if he’d kissed her beneath the stars with the pixies all around them, she would have been lost.

Somehow, he had charmed her into letting her guard down. Without meaning to, she’d begun seeing him as a man instead of a monster. That made her vulnerable and was foolishness she could not afford, not if she wanted to protect her secret.

So, she ignored his attempts at conversation, his broad shoulders, and well-muscled backside, and kept her eyes on the faint prints in the dirt. There appeared to have been four distinct creatures leaving Mont Blanc, all large, and running, judging by the length of their strides.

He knelt and examined a break in the path, following a set of tracks into the brush. “They began changing here,” he said, brushing fallen leaves away. “Must be either young or inexperienced.”

When she did not respond, he said in a high-pitched mockery of her voice, “How interesting, Cyrus. Why do you say that?”

“I’m glad you asked,” he responded to himself in his normal tone. “See all this thrashing about? It means they have not learned to cope with the pain of their transformation. They’re fighting it.”

“Why is that important?” he asked himself.

“Ah, because it lets us know who we are dealing with, and knowledge is power.”

Alix folded her arms and blew an exasperated breath through her nostrils. Did he think she was some child on her first hunt? She wanted to ask what made him think she needed his explanations, but that would draw her into a conversation, which was exactly what she was trying to avoid.

Cyrus stood and brushed off his knees, then glared down at her. It was an impotent gesture, given that there was at least ten feet of space between them, but that didn’t stop him.

“You cannot ignore me forever, minx.”

Her hackles rose immediately, and she started to say that yes, she could, in fact, ignore him indefinitely. But that would be playing into his hand, so she snapped her mouth shut and pretended to examine something very interesting about the tracks she followed.

Cyrus grunted in disgust and stormed up the path. She lost sight of him amongst the boulders and pine trees, blonde hair and broad shoulders disappearing around a rock outcropping. No other person had ever made her so–so… She pulled the necklace out of her shirt, clutched the red stone to her chest, and thought, help me, Maman. I do not know what is wrong with me and I cannot seem to help myself.

No one answered, of course. If there was anyone up there, they couldn’t be bothered—not for a monster like her. Then again, it had been ages since she spoke to Maman, let alone asked for help. You could only ignore someone for so long before they stopped paying attention. And the gem was cold. With a sigh, Alix dropped the pendant beneath her collar, checked the tracks–larger than her palms and dried into the dirt–and kept climbing.

The path split at the top of the pass, which was broken into a rocky labyrinth of crumbling ravines, scrubby bushes, and sheer cliffs carved by the spring melt. Wind tore down the mountainside and blew her hood back, ripping her hair free to lash her face and get stuck in her mouth.

As she tried to capture and tame the wayward strands, a voice floated back toward her, echoing down the ravine. “Alix!”

“Shit,” she muttered, and gave up on her hair to jog up a narrow, steep-sided gully.

“Get up here!”

Wind and echoes distorted the sound, making it appear to come from everywhere at once, and the ground was rockier here, so the prints were hard to track. Alix closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath to follow his scent.

The coppery bite of blood tainted the air, sending an electric jolt down her spine.

She belted her cloak around her waist to keep it from flapping about and tested the breeze with every other breath as she sprinted over the tumbled rocks. Fear tightened the muscles of her shoulders, and she held her pistols low as she crested the rise and cut right, following the smell down a deer path toward a stand of pine.

Cyrus crouched in the shade, but there were no werewolves to fight; only a dying man leaning against a tree, his legs stretched out, naked skin smeared with crusted blood and dirt. Alix slid to a stop and her pistols wavered as pity swamped her. He was starved, his ribs stark, cheeks hollow and grey. The wind changed, and she picked up another smell.

Werewolf.

Pity dried up under the heat of fury. Visions of the village flashed through her mind: the mutilated corpses of innocent men, women, and children; Cyrus cradling Mercedes’ half-starved little body to his chest; Mercedes again, crying in the night and clenching her small fists in Alix’s shirt, trying to hold the world together with white-knuckles.

She trained both barrels on his chest, continuing to walk forward with fingers curled around the triggers.

“Wait,” Cyrus said, raising one hand.

“What for? He deserves to die.”

“Aye,” Cyrus said as she reached him, looking up at her with eyes that had shifted from green to gold. Her heart stuttered. That could mean only one thing: he was close to changing form, closer than she’d ever seen him. And he was a much larger werewolf than the ones they’d been tracking. If he changed and fought her now, she would have a battle on her hands.

But his face and voice remained calm as he said, “He does deserve to die. And he will. Look at him.”

“I’ve seen more than enough.”

“Alix. Look at him.”

She blinked away the memories and allowed her eyes to focus on the man, then recoiled in a mixture of horror and disgust. He was not simply smeared with drying blood; a hundred small, unhealed cuts oozed from his torso, drawing flies, ants, and other crawling bugs to the feast. Yet he was still alive. The magic had not given up trying to heal him, draining his body as it drew on resources to mend the wounds.

But there were too many.

“He was tortured,” she said.

“So he was. I’m hoping he’ll tell us why, and where we can find the people who did this to him, because they’ll be the same ones to blame for Mont Blanc.”

Alix leaned down, pressed the barrel of her pistol to his forehead, and thumbed back the hammer. “Tell us, and I will give you the mercy of a quick death.”

The man’s eyes rolled drunkenly in their sockets. He coughed, and wheezed through peeling lips, “Water?”

Cyrus pulled his canteen from the leather thong and tilted it gingerly against the man’s lips. He gobbled the liquid, spilling half of it on his chest, then coughed so hard that bright red blood flecked his chin and cheeks.

“How did this happen?” Cyrus asked.

The man fell back against the bark, too weak to move. His arm twitched, trying to make an unconscious gesture, but he hadn’t the strength to lift it.

“Please, kill me,” he whispered.

“You’ll die when you tell me who did this to you and where we can find them.”

He licked his lips and closed his eyes, gathering his remaining strength. “Do you swear?”

Alix answered for him. “I swear it.”

The man shuddered. “I was tending the sheep when I heard the screams. By the time I reached the village, it was too late. My mother and sisters were dead, and my father was dying. I hid in the bushes and watched. The werewolves,”–he coughed and swallowed painfully–“they sat and waited. My father died. Then a man came. He said–he said ‘none were strong enough? That is a shame. But you missed one’.”

Cyrus went dreadfully still, as if every ounce of his body, mind, and will were focused on the man. Alix caught her breath.

“He pointed at me,” the man said, “and the werewolves… their teeth. Sun and sky, it hurt. It still hurts.” His head rolled to one side, as if holding it up required too much strength. For a while, he simply panted. When he continued speaking, his voice was hoarse and weak. “They starved us until the full moon and dragged us to the village. When the moon rose, I–gods, forgive me. I can still taste their blood.” Tears filled his eyes, but never fell. “They killed Francois. I wish they would have killed me. In the morning, they drove us out of the village. I changed and tried to run away. They—they punished me. Left me…”

His eyes threatened to roll back in his head and he made a little keening noise of pain.

“Where are they now?” Cyrus asked. “The ones who did this. Where are they?”

The man’s eyelids fluttered. He took two quick, shallow breaths, and said, “Looking. Looking for more. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. Oh gods, what have I done?” He looked up with desperate, glassy eyes. “Please. Please, lady. Have mercy.”

Alix’s hand shook as she raised the pistol, but she did not hesitate. The report sent birds screaming into the sky and echoed back off the rocks, sharp and final as the striking of a gavel. What was left of the man slumped to one side.

“What have you done?” Cyrus demanded, jumping to his feet. “We needed answers, we–” but his voice died he saw her face.

Alix did not bother wondering what she looked like. The world swam in a haze of tears, and her stomach tried to crawl up out of her throat, but she swallowed it back and holstered her gun. “I gave him the mercy he asked for.”

Thunder echoed down the valley as the wind dragged a summer storm across the face of the mountain. Pere Henri floated to the top of her memory, the kindness glowing in his tear-filled eyes as he said, there is always mercy for you. But the only mercy she and those like her would ever find was at the business end of a weapon.

The dead man killed because he was mindless and had no choice. She killed because she chose to.

“Alix, can you hear me?”

A fat drop of rain splattered against her cheek and ran cold down the side of her face. Then another.

“Aw, hell,” Cyrus said, looking up at a sky that had become increasingly dark as they listened to the confession of the dead man. Lighting forked across the clouds, followed by a crack that made the ground shake.

“We need to find cover. Come on.” He grabbed her hand, but she jerked it reflexively out of his grip.

“If we don’t get under cover soon—” he began, but stopped as the hairs on their arms stood up and the air crackled with energy.

Cyrus snatched her pistols and flung them away, then wrapped his arms around her and dropped, covering her with his body as the world went white, the air crackled, and the earth split open.

It took a long time for her ears to stop ringing. Clouds dragged a steady curtain of rain toward them, and the air smelled of ozone and wood smoke.

“Come on.” Cyrus hauled Alix to her feet and dragged her past the smoking stump of a pine tree, split down the middle not twenty feet from where they lay.

He dragged her on, but her feet were lead weights. Rain hit in a breaking wave, soaking them and turning the ground to mud. The heavens cried for every innocent life taken and every monster who took it, drowning the world in tears.

Would anyone cry for her, when her turn came, at last?

For a while, it was impossible to concentrate on anything. Her body moved by pure instinct. One foot, then the other, caught her as she fell forward in a semblance of walking. Somewhere above, her mind floated, detached, watching a big blonde man half-drag, half-carry a slender black-haired woman through a thunderstorm. They were a sorry pair of bedraggled travelers, too stubborn to lie down and die.

###

It was the jostling that brought her back into her body. She blinked and found herself in a leaky one-room hut that stank of musty pelts, staring into the open door of a cast-iron stove where a fire crackled happily.

“What?” she asked, trying to bring the gears of her mind grinding back into order.

Her body jerked to the right, and Cyrus said, “I need to get you out of these wet clothes.”

Her head turned without permission as Cyrus pulled her arm out of the strap of her pack and dropped it in the corner. He lifted the red cloak over her head and draped it on a tanning hook near the stove.

“I won’t get sick,” she said.

“I’m not worried about illness,” Cyrus said as he pulled her boots off. “I’m worried about shock.”

“I don’t get shock.”

He made an exasperated noise and said, “Not that kind,” before pulling his shirt off in a single, swift motion, exposing a broad chest dusted with gold hairs that caught the firelight, and a stomach the novices of St. Christopher’s could have washed their clothes on.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

He unbuttoned his trousers and worked the wet fabric down muscled thighs, leaving him in wet drawers that were practically transparent. “Hanging our clothes up to dry. Now scoot over.”

“I’m fine,” she said. Hadn’t she just explained this? Her body healed too quickly for worries as simple as illness.

Cyrus slid in next to her on the small bed. “The trauma I’m talking about comes from killing someone, not cold weather.”

“I’ve killed lots of people. I told you, I’m fine.”

“Is that so?” he asked, raising a single blonde brow. “Why are your hands shaking, then?”

Alix looked down at her hands, which were clenched and trembling, and not from the cold. In fact, her entire body shook like leaves in a stiff breeze.

Cyrus positioned himself behind her and tugged the hem of her shirt out of her pants. She should stop him, but she only sat bemused as he pulled her shirt and vest off over her head, tossing the garments on the floor near the stove, leaving her in only her stays and trousers.

After a moment of wrangling, her trousers followed, too.

He said, “Come here,” before wrapping an arm about her waist and pulling her back against him.

She had not realized how cold she was until her bare back pressed against his chest. Cyrus rubbed her arms from shoulder to elbow in slow, comforting sweeps, warming her faster than the fire could. Telling him to shove off would have been smarter, but she said nothing. This was exactly the kind of danger she had been afraid of, danger she would be powerless to fight because it felt too good not to be alone.

Slowly, with every stroke of his hands on her skin, her body gave up a bit more tension. Her defenses withered, and with them the emotional barriers she used to protect herself. Giving in to her pain and fear was not an option when she was alone, because if she faltered, people died. And, if she broke again, she’d never be able to put the pieces back together on her own.

But she wasn’t alone, now.

Alix swallowed the lump rising in her throat and said, “He wasn’t a monster, was he?”

It wasn’t a question, not really. She knew the answer.

“No, I don’t think he was. Not on purpose, anyway.”

A tear slid down her cheek as another crack of thunder shook the little trapper’s cabin. “He wasn’t a monster. But I am.”

Her hands stopped shaking altogether, and tears fell instead.

“My family was killed when I was twenty-five years old,” Cyrus said.

He didn’t know why he said it. He preferred to keep the memory safely buried, except that the dead man on the side of the hill had a story far too similar to his own… and Alix was still crying. A week ago he would have said there was not a stronger, more intractable, colder human on the planet.

Now each hopeless, heartbreaking sob cut him like a razor blade. He would have said anything to stop her tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He continued trying to rub warmth back into her arms and told himself digging up his painful memories was worth it if it helped her feel less alone. “When I was a lad, monsters were much more common, and protecting our villages fell to those chosen by the moon. At twenty-five, I was the oldest of the chosen, and it was my job to keep our families safe.

One day, a traveler came from a neighboring village and said monsters were on the hunt. Several shepherds had died, and half a flock was destroyed. Must have been two creatures, at least, they guessed.

Until then, I had only run off a few bandits and protected our herds from reavers and the occasional starved wolf. Of course, I thought I was experienced and clever, and destroying these monsters would prove me a great hero. Moon and stars, I was a fool.” Bitterness made his lip curl in distaste at the memory. “I was no hero. In truth, I was as useful as a fart that thinks it’s a stiff breeze.”

Alix snorted, clapped a hand over her mouth, and shook with suppressed laughter. But the dam broke and a flood of giggles followed until tears ran. Laughter was just as cathartic as crying, and he’d rather hear that joyful sound, one that lightened his load and dulled the pain of his memories, than her tears.

He held her and tried to absorb her amusement like a plant sucking up sunlight. As the hilarity wore off, she wiped her eyes and sighed, then turned on the small cot and faced him. Her eyes were puffy, her nose red, her cheeks splotchy. How could he still find her so lovely?

She said, “Don’t tell me what happened. Not for my sake. But if,” –she bit her lips–“if you need to share it with someone, I’ll listen.”

Damned if he did not want to take her up on that offer. Fear and grief churned beneath her steady gaze, yet she offered him a chance to unburden himself. The greater part of his mind screamed that exposing his past only gave her more ammunition to use against him.

But his memories and failures had been yoked around his neck like a plow for centuries, dragging him down, sewing ruin, and growing pain. He carried them alone because they were too heavy to ask anyone else to bear.

Alix had burdens of her own, but she was still standing, still willing to let him share his despite her distaste for him. If he did not take the offer, it may never come again. What would it feel like to release some of the weight, knowing it would not crush someone?

He swallowed and said, “If you are willing to bear it.”

She nodded.

###

Stone cottages were not built for men like Cyrus; he had to crouch to enter and dodge rafters once inside. Staying out of doors was preferable, even if a smirr covered the highlands with a silvery haze that soaked his plaid and plastered his hair to his head.

But today he had important business with his father. So instead of patrolling the vast tracts of land round the village, he bent to avoid the lintel and squeezed into his parent’s house. The air was close and warm, rich with the scent of barley bread and pottage bubbling in the coals.

His sister napped on her pallet by the hearth, cherub cheeks flushed pink. One chubby fist curled around the limp arm of Tally, the rag-stuffed doll he bought her at the market.

“Where’s the old man?” he asked.

“Just let him hear you call him that,” his mother warned, smiling as she set a small white cheese on the board next to a brown loaf and wiped her hands on her apron. Blonde hair escaped along the edges of her scarf, clinging to her neck and temples in damp curls, and her eyes held a twinkle of mischief.

“Och, you wouldn’t tattle on me, would you?”

“I promise not to let it slip over dinner on one condition.”

He snorted and bent down to kiss her fondly. “You’re a manipulative woman, Mrs. Campbell.”

“Aye, well, a mother has some rights,” she said, patting his cheek with a warm smile.

Cyrus thumbed a piece of cheese off the wheel and skipped out of her reach as she swatted at him for the theft, narrowly avoiding braining himself on a rafter.

“I fulfilled my filial responsibilities, so tell me: where is the old man?”

“What have I done to be cursed with such offspring? Very well, you thieving heathen. He’s away down to the loch, bringing up the fish.”

“He’s back with the fish,” came a gruff voice from outside. “Come help me with the catch, lad.”

Cyrus found himself obeying the old man without thinking, then sighed as he lifted the stringer of trout from the woven basket that also served as a pack. He was twenty-five now, more than a man, grown, and a protector of their village. He should not be jumping at orders like some child or well-trained hound.

Still, he carried the stringer to the smokehouse and began hanging the fish in lines just below the rafters. The old man joined him with two more stringers and started work on the next line.

“You’ve heard of the monsters in Nairnoch?” Cyrus said, as casually as possible.

“Aye. Bad business, that.”

“Two nights in a row, no less.”

His father hung the last gleaming trout and turned to face him. The building reeked of a hundred smokey fires and the oily stink of drying fish had sunk deep into every fiber of wood and straw. It was an overpowering odor, but Cyrus ignored it and met his father’s gaze without flinching or turning away.

Arran Campbell was not as tall as his son, but he was stout and strong, even at sixty, and his eyes held the command born of decades of leadership. He sniffed and said, “Well, it is their own fault they lost the last of their moon children when Graeme was killed by the English in that foolish raid. Of course monsters will come if they’ve only Tam and the dogs to protect them. They should have joined Dunmorrow. Instead, they knowingly squandered their gift and now beg for aid. I take it, you mean to give it to them?”

“If the monsters attack Nairnoch with no resistance, they’ll come for the bigger villages next. Better to stamp out the threat now, while we have strength and forewarning.”

His da made a dismissive noise in the back of his throat, and left the hut, holding the door open for Cyrus to follow. The damp air was blessedly free of fish stink, and he took a deep breath to clear his sinuses. His Da pulled the edge of his plaid up and over his shoulders to ward off the weather.

“If you take the boys,” he said, “you’ll leave the village unprotected.”

“Protecting the village is the reason I’m taking them. We can stop the threat before it reaches us, and keep Nairnoch safe in the bargain.”

“Why do you need all of them? Leave Angus and Will to look after things, if you’re determined to hie off and save the damned countryside.”

“I’ve kept our patrols close to home at your suggestion. Had I not, perhaps Nairnoch would be safe and those men would still be alive.”

“Your duty is not to Nairnoch, boy,” his da said, the purple vein on his forehead pulsing. “The moon gave them guardians of their own, and they misused them. Fewer are chosen each year, and they should have known better. No sense in sacrificing ours for their foolishness.”

“You’d sentence our neighbors to death when the beasts return and there is no one to stop them?”

“Call them in. Bring them to our village, if you must, but keep your oath and protect those you swore to care for, ” the old man said, sticking out his jaw. All the signs were there, warnings Cyrus had learned to watch for as a boy that told him an explosion was imminent: the red nose, the pulsing vein, the stubborn thrust of his jaw.

But he wasn’t a boy anymore; he was a leader, he’d made a decision, and that was that. “I am keeping my oath,” he said, raising his chin. “We will ambush the werewolves above the loch road. We’ll trap them there, against the water, and finish them. Then we’ll hang the bodies as a warning.”

His da snorted. “Only if it is werewolves, as you suspect. What if you’re facing something else that–”

“There are witnesses.”

“A scared shepherd will turn a starved wolf into a werewolf and a poor vagabond into a vampire. Never trust an eyewitness. Cyrus, listen to me: our village lives without fear because you and the boys do what is right by us. Leaving now,” he shook his head and snatched the cane he’d left leaning against the smoke hut. “It’s not fulfilling your duty, it’s abandoning it. If I still had my wolf–”

“You don’t,” Cyrus said, slashing the air with the edge of his hand. “You gave up your wolf and left me to lead, so I’m leading. I didn’t come to ask your permission. I came to ask you to keep everyone in their homes and make sure they’re armed. They’ll listen to you. Trust me to do the job you left for me.”

“Boy–”

“The decision is mine to make, and I’ve made it. That’s the end of it.”

Cyrus turned and left his father standing by the smokehouse, clutching his walking stick as if he could strangle it.

As he strode out of the village, the rain died and left the sky a dull, angry gray that mirrored his mood. All who saw him gave a respectful nod and scuttled out of the way, not wanting to draw his eye. Good.

“Cy! Cyrus!” The voice calling his name cracked into an adolescent squeak on the last syllable, and some of his anger fizzled.

Lyrus ran down the hill after him, all long limbs and coltish grace. He’d be a bear of a man, someday, but now he had the awkward proportions of one growing too fast for their body to keep up; knobby knees, large hands and feet, long legs, and not enough muscle to fill it all out. But his younger brother had a smile that put the sun to shame.

His name was Leith, but he had started calling himself Lyrus when Cyrus left for training. “Now our names match because I’m just like you,” he’d said, hugging his older brother’s legs with hero worship in his six-year-old eyes. Cyrus had never been able to forget that moment. The boy refused to be called by any other name for long enough that it stuck, and hardly anyone remembered what it had been.

“Wait up,” Lyrus panted, slowing to a walk as he drew alongside his brother. “How’d it go?”

“What do you think?”

“That well, eh?”

Cyrus rolled his eyes, but Lyrus clapped him on the back and laughed. “He’s bound to take it hard. He led the Moon Children for a long time, after all. He’ll come around.”

“Aye, I suppose.”

Lyrus squinted at the horizon. “Second night of the full moon. Are you off to kill a few werewolves, then?”

“That’s the plan. You remember the job I gave you?”

It was Lyrus’ turn to roll his eyes. “Hard to forget. Never thought my first heroic task would be babysitting.”

Cyrus laughed and pulled his brother into a hug, slapping him fondly on the back. He was the only man in his family not chosen by the moon, so he was hungry to prove himself any way he could.

“Nothing is more heroic than protecting those as can’t protect themselves,” Cyrus reminded him. “Watch over them.”

“I know, I know. Stay safe, brother.”

He met up with the rest of the Moon Children at the crossroads halfway to Nairnoch. They stood in a loose group, laughing and jostling as the last light left the overcast sky.

“There’s our fearless leader,” Angus said, elbowing Liam and gesturing with his chin.

The frustration of his father’s disapproval fell away as his pack enveloped him with good-natured ribbing. He’d spent ten years training with these men, living wild and learning to partner with the magic, to hunt and hide and kill whatever threatened the safety of their village.

And when he’d grown bigger and faster than the rest of them, they deferred to him, followed him, and finally chose Cyrus to lead their pack. And he was about to order them into real danger for the first time.

For a moment he wished he’d taken his father’s advice, and that they were all home safe by the fire. But it was too late for such thoughts. This was what they trained for, why the moon had chosen them in the first place.

“Alright, alright, haud yer wheesht,” he told them. “Mortals are in danger. We’ve planned this. You know what to do.”

Their humor melted away, and the air filled with an expectant charge of excitement as they shifted. Cyrus took a deep, calming breath, lifted his face to the sky, and called on the moon. With enough practice, changing forms only hurt like a good stretch for sore muscles, a pleasant ache and popping as tissue and joints shifted and slid into place.

One moment, five young men stood on the hillside, and the next, five wolves sneezed and shook out their fur. It always took a moment to adjust, like walking out of a dark cave into the sunshine, but once they settled into the wolf, their enhanced senses kicked in.

A ground squirrel hid close by, its little heart thrumming with panic beneath the constant hum of the midges. Far back in the trees, a pine marten stared at them from the branch of a tree, its small eyes reflecting the moonlight. Angus had recently lain with a lass, and her smell wafted from him like honeysuckle on a breeze. Every head rose and turned toward him.

‘Are you trying for pups?’ Will asked by tilting his head and flicking one ear, his tongue lolling out in amusement.

Angus snorted and pinned his ears back, which meant, “Mind your business.”

Amusing as that was, they had a job to do. Cyrus growled, reminding them to stay on task, and led them forward at a loping trot. As they neared Nairnoch, wolves broke off in pairs of two, disappearing into the heather and growing darkness until Cyrus was alone.

He crouched on the hill overlooking the flock, hidden in the tall grass, and scented the old blood of the kill, wet wool, and the sweet, thick scent of peat smoke from the crofter’s fires… but no enemy. The rain had cleared much of it away. Hopefully that wouldn’t matter, as they were ambushing, not tracking the abominations.

They waited with the patience of hunters as the moon traversed the sky, but no monsters appeared and no warning howls sounded from the woods where the rest of the pack patrolled the shadows. Dawn wasn’t far away, and time was short. It was time for the backup plan.

On cue, Angus arrived at the edge of the field, alerting the dogs and making the sheep bleat in terror and bolt for the opposite side of the clearing. Fear rose like a sweet, invisible cloud that made his mouth water. Will stalked in from the other side, cutting off the herd and trapping them between himself and his partner.

The scent was so strong that no predator, especially no werewolf, could ignore it, yet none appeared. Just as Cyrus decided to call his brothers off, a panicked howl rose from the forest near the road. Angus and Will stopped terrorizing the sheep and raised their heads with pricked ears. That was not a signal. It was a call for help.

He flew across the hillside, claws digging into the wet turf, with Angus and Will on his flanks. They nearly bowled into Liam on the road. He lay on his side with a gaping from his shoulder down across his chest. His foreleg hung limp as he twitched and cried.

“What happened?” Cyrus demanded, tilting his head and whining.

Liam’s eyes rolled in pain, but he lifted his head and pointed his nose toward… home.

When Cyrus’ voice trailed off, Alix held her breath. As he spoke, the pain of her memories was reflected in his eyes. The promise of impending disaster cast a dark shadow over his affection for his mother, sister, and brother. Bile burned the back of her throat as he described his desire to prove himself and earn his position as a leader; his hunger for the respect of his father, and the gut-wrenching fear of realizing he made a terrible mistake.

Her heart pounded harder than if she were in the middle of a fight, and her throat tightened until it was hard to breathe.

More than once she wanted to tell him to stop, but she could not deny him this chance to release even a fraction of the weight of his past. Especially not knowing the depth of the scars it had left on him.

But now Cyrus was quiet, his eyes glazed and distant, locked on some faraway memory. Sweat beaded unnoticed on his brow and upper lip, and every muscle was rigid with strain. Echos of retreating thunder rolled across the little hut, shaking the timber frame as wind howled through the eaves. 

When she killed the broken werewolf, the reality of indifferent fate–a fate that allowed cruelty to make monsters of innocent men–came crashing down on her like a rockslide. How many times had she been the sword of judgment used upon those whose only crime was being caught in the wrong place?

The guilt of that truth crushed her until simply moving her body became almost impossible. And Cyrus cradled her against his chest with the same tender care he’d given Mercedes. He had reached through the rockslide and pulled her to the surface.

Now he was trapped in the prison of his memories, a prison he’d entered willingly for her sake, and she was the only person who might pull him back out. 

What should she do? She’d never comforted someone before, had never been close enough to anyone outside the convent to have even the opportunity to offer comfort. But a vague memory of maman’s hands and her soft, gentle voice called from the dark reaches of her mind. Licking her lips, Alix moved slowly so as not to alarm him, and cupped his face between them. His skin was clammy.

“Shh,” she said, stroking his temples. “It’s alright. I’m here. I’m here.”

His pupils constricted and focused, and he took a gasping breath, as if surfacing from deep water. Covering her hands with his, pressing her palms against his cheeks, he closed his eyes.

When he spoke, his voice was ragged and heavy with unshed tears. “We ran until we coughed up blood, but we did not run fast enough. I smelled burning long before we reached the village and knew, even as I ran, that we were too late. The bodies–” he shuddered and a hot tear slid down his cheek to wet her palm.

“Cyrus,” she started, but he kept talking, as if the memories must either force their way out or burst through his skin.

“I found my da under the rubble of the smokehouse. While my pack searched the ruins for their families, I pulled the stones and wood beams off of him. His chest was crushed, but he was still breathing. He held a bent knife in one hand and blood–there was so much blood. He’d given up his wolf years ago, so he did not heal.”

Alix wiped his tears with the pads of her thumbs.

“He said, ‘Your mam is dead. I couldn’t save them.’ I tried to clean him up and staunch the bleeding, but he pushed my hands away. He was dying. I smelled it even without my wolf, but it would be a slow death. He said, ‘Don’t let me suffer, boy. Send me to meet your mother.’ So I did.”

Her ribcage constricted and squeezed her heart like a bird in a fist.

In the last month, she had killed two men who did not deserve their fate: one brave priest, and one monster who had deserved pity she wasn’t able to give him. But it was not their eyes she remembered, or their voices she heard saying, You must kill me, Alix darling. Please.

“Lyrus tried to keep his promise,” Cyrus continued. “He hid Effie in his plaid and ran for the forest. He was young and fast as a red deer, but the monster caught him, anyway. His throat was ripped out. And Effie–”

“No,” Alix said, placing her hand over his mouth.

He gently pulled her hand away, but threaded his fingers through hers and held on.

“We buried them. We dug their graves with our claws and our hands, but we never spoke. They would not forgive me. I made the wrong choice when it mattered the most, and it cost them everything. They hated me. I hated me.”

“At least you were brave enough to go home,” she whispered, imagining her mother searching the forest and calling for her lost child, knowing no one would answer.

“I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had turned and run as soon as I smelled the smoke and never looked back. Perhaps then I would not see them broken when I close my eyes. I could pretend Lyrus found love, and Effie grew to be as clever as our mam, and—”

“Shh,” she said, and pulled him toward her, scooting until her back rested against the flimsy wall and his head lay on her lap. His hair was damp and tangled from their flight through the storm. She brushed it off his forehead, the way her mother had done when she cried, repeating the gesture while humming a soothing song.

The name of the song was lost in the darker parts of her memory, along with the long-forgotten words, but it was a beautiful tune that reminded her of her mother, so she hummed it, anyway.

Cyrus let out a long, shuddering sigh and wrapped his arms about her hips, nestling against her as his body relaxed. Something tender awoke in her chest at the sight of him, a feeling she’d never experienced and certainly never imagined having toward the wolf.

But pretending was useless, now. This man was not a monster, no matter how she wanted to deny it. The beasts she hunted for two hundred years were nothing like the gentle man now curled around her like a lost child. Or, perhaps they were, once. Maybe they had been as wrongly, cruelly used as the tortured man lying dead on the mountainside. 

If that was so, then she had tried to escape her past and fought monsters to atone for her blood in vain. If One truth remained unchanged and unchangeable: she was the monster.

Alix hesitated, then asked, “Why?”

“Hmm?”

“Why tell me this?”

Cyrus tightened his arms for a moment, pressing his cheek against her thigh, then sat up, took her hand, and turned it over. He ran his thumbs from her wrist, up her palm, and out to her fingertips, repeating the motion and staring down as he said, “I suppose I thought… maybe you’d feel less alone. And”–he raised his head, eyes searching–“you were crying.”

He said the last as if it explained everything. 

They stared at one another for a long time as the storm continued to rage across the mountaintop. Water dripped through several holes in the roof to patter against the floor, but the walls were sound and their small corner of the hut was warm and dry. 

Cyrus’ eyes were as green as a summer meadow after a rain, when the sun comes out and the world looks fresh and new. He did not look at her now with derision, frustration, or even with desire… he simply saw her, all of her, and he did not flinch or turn away.

Instead, he released her hands and held out both arms in silent invitation. She hesitated, her cautious nature repeating every reason why trusting him would be a mistake. But if Cyrus wanted to hurt her, he already had a dozen changes. Trying to convince herself he was waiting for the right opportunity didn’t work anymore.

Holding her breath, she scooted forward and let Cyrus gather her against his body, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other cradling her head on his chest and shoulder.

Their trousers were still damp, but he was warm, his bare skin smooth, and even the hair on his chest was soft. How long had it been since someone held her? Her muscles relaxed and her breathing slowed and deepened. Was this what safety felt like?

Alix yawned, finally succumbing to the emotional toll of the last few days. With a graceful twist, He turned and lay back across the cot in the opposite direction, pulling her after him. She was stretched out across him, his heartbeat strong and steady beneath her ear, the rain a constant hum above them.

***

Alix blinked. Had she fallen asleep? Coals lit the room with a dull red glow, and the only sound was the occasional patter of water dripping from branches onto the roof. Cyrus traced her back with his fingertips in long sweeps from her shoulders to her hip and back. Given that she was lying atop a werewolf, half-naked, on an empty mountaintop in a deserted cabin, she was absurdly comfortable.

So, of course, she ruined it by pushing herself up to see if her clothes were dry, but the position left her looking down at Cyrus. The breath stopped in her throat. He lay stretched out beneath her, all lazy grace and powerful muscles, the ridges of his abdomen and the deep shadows of his hips close enough to taste, if she wished it. His eyelids were heavy, his expression relaxed, his lips…

She tore her eyes away and said, “I’m sorry I fell asleep on you.”

A contented rumble vibrated through his chest and against her, which was a potent reminder that their hips were still pressed together, and she wore nothing but stays that only covered half of her breasts.

Cyrus noted this with a hot look of approval but didn’t move. “Don’t be sorry, minx. It was the best sleep I’ve ever had.”

She opened her mouth to say don’t call me that, but found she didn’t mind it quite so much when he said it that way. He stopped breathing. His grip tightened on her hips. Warmth spread from her chest and down, pooling between her legs. 

He licked his lips. 

Cyrus wanted her. The hard ridge of his desire pressed against her in silent proof. He did not move or touch her in any way that might be considered breaking his promise to keep his hands to himself… but she wanted him to.

She wanted him to kiss her, to palm her breasts, to touch every suddenly aching inch of her. But that would mean asking him, and she refused to give him that victory. He shifted beneath her to ease the pressure, and a little tingling rush of anticipation made her want to flex her hips in return, to ease the fullness growing between her legs. 

That would be foolish, and Alix was no fool.

Then again, a few hours ago, she’d nearly been struck by lighting, and this man had shielded her with his body. She’d been too upset during the incident to realize what he’d done, but the memory made warmth flush from her collarbone to her knees.

No one had ever put themselves in danger for her sake, and she was so tired of being alone.

“Can I trust you, wolf?”

He swallowed and raised a brow. “If you’re asking me whether I’ll keep my promise, then, aye, you can trust me. But damned if I don’t regret making it.”

A feral smile crept across Alix’s face. Part of her, the instinctive, self-protective part, screamed that being this close to him would get her killed. But that part was nowhere near as strong as the need building in her stomach.

“Let us see how well you keep your word,” she said, and threw her leg over his hip to sit astride him.

“This, ah,”–he cleared his throat–“feels like a trap.”

She grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the bed next to his head, leaning over him with a rush of power so intense it made her giddy. Cyrus was a big man, and stronger than anyone she’d ever known. He was both fast and deadly, and he was at her mercy.

“It is a test,” she said, leaning down until her lips were a breath away from his. “Will you pass it?”

His swallow was loud in the silence.

Alix ran the tip of her nose down his jawline, along the side of his neck, to his collarbone, liking the sharp musk of dried sweat and the lighter, cleaner scent of the storm that still clung to his hair. 

He shivered as she retraced the path with her tongue, stopping at the spot where his lifeblood ran close to the surface. In the past, with mortal lovers, she was forced to balance her desire for comfort with her vampiric thirst. The warm, wet heat always called to the monster in her, made her throat dry and her mouth water.

Thirst never won, of course, but it was a constant distraction when the mouthwatering scent was so near. But Cyrus did not smell like a mortal; his blood was wild, more like that of a bear than an elf, man, or dwarf. So she bit him; not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to hurt just a little, testing the resilience of his skin and tasting the salt of his sweat.

He groaned and leaned into the love bite, arching his neck involuntarily. Alix smiled and continued the torture, reveling in the novelty of being this close to another person and not battling a darker desire to do harm.

She nuzzled him a while longer to enjoy the sensation, then kissed her way back to his jaw, stopping at the corner of his mouth. He had not moved so much as an inch. With a low sound of pleasure, Alix stretched out, pressing herself against him from breast to knees, soaking in his warmth like a cat in the sun.

“You’re trying to make me break my word,” he accused, his voice low and gravelly.

The tip of her tongue ran along his lower lip as her hands left his wrists, trailing up the corded muscles of his forearms to his biceps. “You’re not touching me, I’m touching you.”

“Semantics.”

She dragged herself along the length of him, his cock pressing against her through their thin clothing. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Not for the moon and every damned star in the heavens. God, do that again.”

She smiled and rolled her hips. Shimmering pleasure followed the caress, and Cyrus groaned, his whole body rigid with the effort to keep his promise.

The sound went straight to her blood like a shot of whisky, but it was proving much easier to get drunk on Cyrus than it had ever been with alcohol. Purring, she leaned down and kissed him.

His lips were soft, his mouth hot, and the salty-sweet taste of him made her lightheaded as he rolled his tongue over hers in a hypnotic rhythm. When she sat up, putting her full weight on his hips, the sight of him made her catch her breath.

Hunger turned his eyes gold, and they were locked on her face, on her lips, with a smoldering desire that was a hair away from predatory. Her heart kicked into high gear, and he heard it, one corner of his lips curling into a smile so sinful she was wet merely looking at him.

“Aye,” he said in a low growl, “I want you–with every fiber of my body. I want you so much I can feel my heartbeat throb between my legs.”

 The knowledge that all that deadly power was helpless beneath her was an aphrodisiac that made her wild with need. She was more ready for him than she’d ever been in her life, and they’d barely done anything.

She scooted back and began unbuttoning the fly of his drawers. Cyrus pulled a breath in through his teeth, and his stomach clenched, the dim light of coals picking out every ridge of muscle. Even when she’d hated him, she could not lie to herself about his beauty. Now every curve and hollow was hers to explore.

The last button popped free and, with a tug, so did Cyrus. Her eyes widened and her mouth went dry. 

He chuckled. “Don’t worry, minx. We will fit together like puzzle pieces, you and me.”

That was difficult to believe. Hesitantly, she wrapped her fingers around him and stroked him once, from tip to base. His hips flexed involuntarily, and he said through clenched teeth, “You’re going to kill me, woman.”

“I might,” she agreed, then stroked him again. His pulse beat beneath her fingers as she pumped the hard length of him. His eyes rolled back as he bit his lips against another groan.

When he was sweating and both hands were fisted in the thin blanket, she released him. Her own pulse beat between her legs with a demand she could no longer ignore. She began unlacing her fly, and his eyes locked on every motion with predatory hunger.

“I want to do that,” he said as she slid her drawers down over her hips. “I want to undress you, to taste your desire, and feel you squirm as I spread your legs.”

She fumbled, the vision his words conjured making her hands shake. Lovers were difficult for her to come by, and while she usually enjoyed herself, it had never been like this. When she finally positioned herself over him, she was almost frantic.

“Let me touch you,” he coaxed.

Alix wrapped her fingers around his cock with one hand–how was his skin so soft?--then leaned down and growled against his lips, “Shut up, wolf,” as she lowered herself with a gasp. Despite how wet she was, he was too big. She retreated, then lowered herself again, and again, each stroke bringing him deeper.

“You’re not...ready,” he said between clenched teeth. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

But she’d already begun, and need drove her forward. “I’m ready enough.”

“My god,” he breathed, his eyes on their joined bodies as she slid down, and down again, until finally seating him to the hilt. His back arched and his hands fisted in the rough blanket.

He filled her, stretched her, reaching so deeply that every pulse of his desire throbbed against her womb. She wanted him to touch her, but couldn’t speak. All coherent thought fled. She had to move, had to satisfy the building pressure between her legs. So she rocked her hips and felt the first deep rush as he slid out and back in.

Alix whimpered, but she couldn’t stop. She needed more of him, all of him, and every moan that escaped his lips made her pace quicken, rocking faster, harder, until she rode him with a desperate need that made it hard to catch her breath.

But it wasn’t enough.

Tension built, tightening her inner muscles. She needed. God’s breath, she needed him. She could not get enough.

“Alix,” he panted, hands hovering over her hips but not touching as she whimpered, searching for something just out of her reach. “Alix, let me–oh god.”

She was so close, on the edge of a cliff but unable to jump. In desperation, she grabbed Cyrus’ wrists, pressed his hands against her hips, and cried, “Please.” 

With a growl of triumph, he surged upright and tore her stays in half down the front, exposing her breasts. Her head fell back as he captured one breast, sucking and teasing her nipple with his tongue and teeth. Her fingers threaded through his hair to lock him in place, but now that she had given him permission, Cyrus would not be controlled.

He rolled her other nipple between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing just hard enough to send a sharp thrill up her spine, watching her with narrowed eyes.

“By the moon, you’re perfect,” he breathed against her breast as his fingers flexed on her hips, slowing her pace, matching her rhythm so that each stroke dragged her wet, sensitive flesh against the base of his shaft.

She shuddered and sucked in a breath.

“That’s it.” He leaned back to enjoy the sinuous movement of her hips, to cup her breasts, and flick his thumbs across her nipples. Those golden eyes watched as if he could devour her, his gaze so hot it was like a brand on her bare skin.

She was close, so close it made her want to cry. The tension and the pressure were too much to bear. Little whimpering noises escaped as she pulled at him, unable to satisfy the need.

He made a low noise deep in his throat. “Shh. I’ve got you.”

His hand trailed across her stomach and down between her legs until he found the knot of sensitive flesh. She jerked hard enough to nearly unseat him, but Cyrus held her tight against his body. With rhythmic motions of his thumb, he matched the timing of her rocking hips, sending shimmering waves of ecstasy, one after the other, from her center down to her toes. Every muscle in her core tightened, pulling, and the tension redoubled.

“Cyrus,” she moaned, knowing she was about to break under the strain as her legs shook. “I’m–I need–I can’t–”

“I’m here,” he said, sliding his thumb over her, making bright sparks ignite and burn her insides to ash. “Come for me, minx. Oh god, let me watch you come undone.”

Everything disappeared but the heat of his mouth, the lean, resilient muscle beneath her palms, the tightening pressure, the pleasure, the aching, desperate need that suddenly doubled, tripled, then burst.

Cyrus groaned and shuddered. His hands tightened as his body arched like a bow, pushing him deeper until they were locked together, spasming and panting, slick with sweat.

She threw her head back and screamed as release hit her like a series of breaking waves expanding from her core, shaking and shivering, drawing her down and down into liquid warmth. 

Alix rested her forehead against his. Their breath mingled for a heartbeat before she sighed, collapsed onto his chest, and tipped gently into the welcoming dark.

“Alix. Alix wake up.”

“Hmm?” She blinked and shifted. Hair scratched her breasts and a soft, welcome fullness throbbed inside her. They were still joined, and she must have passed out. She wasn’t even embarrassed. In a couple of hundred years, she’d had sex more times than she could count or remember. But never like that.

Her partners had sometimes been patient, tender, or passionate, but they were only interested in the same thing she was: an hour of forgetfulness, and a bit of release. It was a purely transactional experience and, while pleasant, she was content to go months, even years, without, when necessary.

But with Cyrus? She wanted him again. Now. Enough that her hips shifted in anticipation. 

His hands tightened on her thighs, stilling her before she began. “As much as I would give for another round,” he whispered, “we have to get dressed.”

“Why?”

“Something is outside, and it is not human.”