Daphne was sure she was having some kind of auditory hallucination. She was about to ask the crow what the fuck was going on, which was definitely something a mentally sound person would do, and then she heard the laugh again.

She froze. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she should run towards the voice or away from it. She’d spent months wishing for contact with another person, but in this moment, fear sparked through her like an electric shock.

She shook herself and turned to her left, in the direction that the noise had come from. She vaulted up on top of a hatchback sitting against the curb and then leapt for the roof of the little bistro behind it. She had just enough time to register that the logo looked like a demon sandwich before it dawned on her that she hadn’t jumped high enough.

She slammed into the brick building, scrabbling for some kind of handhold, missing spectacularly and freefalling down. Her spine exploded with pain and she shrieked as she smacked into a railing on the way down, and then landed hard on the sidewalk.

“What was that?” somebody asked.

That surely wasn’t a crow’s voice. It was one hundred percent a human voice. Or perhaps, whatever humanoid creature Daphne was.

Questions flew to the forefront of Daphne’s mind as she staggered to her feet, pain licking her back. She wiped at her face, warm thick wetness smearing around. Of course she’d find a person to talk to right after smashing her face into the ground.

She still didn’t see anyone, though the voice had sounded so close. Brow furrowed, she moved onto the street, looking in the direction she’d been moving before. Her eyes widened at the sight of two large dogs in the middle of the road, eyes trained on her.

No, not dogs. They were wolves.

The sunlight filtered through the shiny fur, and it was as if time slowed down. Daphne’s heart hammered in her chest as she watched the auburn fur of the wolf on the left shift in the breeze and sparkle. The one on the right lowered its shoulders, silvery fur sticking up along its spine like a mohawk, and a low growl sounded in its throat.

Daphne gulped. Anything she’d ever read about facing predatory animals in the wild flew from her head, and she stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do, fear gripping her all the way down to her bones.

“Caw!” the crow screeched, in an almost desperate way. That seemed to shake her back into reality, and Daphne suddenly remembered that she could run really fucking fast. Maybe even fast enough to escape from wolves.

She turned and sprinted away, ignoring the little flutters of pain still leftover in her spine from her fall. As her muscles warmed again, pumping hard, she revelled in the relief of her body moving again, ignoring the coppery scent of blood still sticking to her face.

There was the scent of something else, though, too. Something familiar. Musty, almost, like old books dusted with… paprika? Daphne wanted to scrub her hands down her face, wondering what the hell she was even thinking about, but she was too busy trying to keep her balance as she sprinted.

Then it was as if a ton of bricks slammed into her from behind. She screamed as she went down, almost in slow motion, the asphalt coming up fast at her just-healed face. She threw out her forearms just in time to shred the skin of her triceps against the ground, and squawked in surprise when a hand curled around her shoulder to flip her over.

“I… I… what…” she stammered, brain hiccuping as she struggled to make sense of what had happened. She’d been sure that a wolf had jumped her from behind, sure that it was one of them that had caught up to her.

But it wasn’t a wolf on top of her now. She lay frozen in the middle of the street, arms burning from the skidmarks of her fall, staring up at a naked crimson-haired woman.

Said naked woman lashed out with a strong yet dainty hand and gripped Daphne’s throat, squeezing her hips with her thighs as she straddled her quivering body.

The woman opened her mouth and then narrowed her eyes, leaning forward as if she had a bad taste in her mouth.

Daphne’s breath caught in her throat as one of the wolves stalked up next to them, as casual as if it were coming in to get a head scratch.

Then the fur disappeared beneath soft ochre skin, revealing a kneeling man with a strong brow.

And a very human body.

“Caw!” said the crow, and Daphne just screamed and screamed.