The mist that had started creeping in thickened until it covered the clearing in a twisting wall of white. It was cool against my skin, and the wet coating amplified the scents of the forest. Which was unfortunate, since those smells currently included rotting corpses.

Actually, the mist was really cold- to cold.

My guts twisted, and I pulled away from Blair. “Something’s wrong! This mist isn’t-“ Blair whipped her head to the side, then grabbed me.

Something moved in the mists, and Blair jumped.

Like it had in the Dome, my world slowed to crawl.

I watched the mist part and swirl in slow motion. I watched the individual strands of Blair’s hair as they streamed through the air, buffeting my face. And I watched as a massive shape tore the ground apart where we had been.

Oh shit.

The world rushed back as we landed in the branches of a huge pine, the massive thing barely swaying from our landing.

“What the hell even is-“ I didn’t get to finish as Blair pushed off the tree hard enough to rock it. She slammed into the ground, cratering the grass.

A gust of wind rolled over the clearing, blowing the mist away.

A monster stood before us. It towered above Blair, twelve or thirteen feet tall, and looked like it had crawled out of someone’s nightmare.

It was starved, its whole form painfully thin, with pitch black skin stretched over bone like it had been vacuumed on. I could make out every rib in its emaciated chest without even trying.

It stood on two legs, bare feet digging into the dirt with cracked, talon-like nails. One elongated arm rose from the trench it had carved in the earth, and the limb stretched past its knee, each finger tipped with a long, gleaming claw.

Mist swirled around the creature and slowly started filling the clearing again. I realized with a start that it was coming from the monster.

The mist covered its face until all I could make out were a few jagged teeth and the massive rack of antlers that jutted from its head like a dark crown.

That, and its eyes. Twin specks of cold blue light pierced through the mist and locked right on me.

As disturbing as the creature was to look at, that was nothing compared to how it felt.

It pulled at my aura with two sensations. Hunger. So overwhelming, so all-consuming that it pushed everything else aside. Every emotion and instinct, all other thoughts, they were nothing compared to the rabid, desperate need to consume.

And creeping behind the hunger was cold. Uncomplicated, but ever present, the thing felt like winter, but only the worst parts. The harshest, darkest depths when light grew scarce and food even scarcer. The time when the creeping cold dug its way deep inside, taking root.

The time when you would do anything, in the cold and the dark, to survive.

Anything.

I gasped and pulled my aura back. This thing was- I wanted to scrub my memory of the way it felt.

It was evil. Not just hostile or dangerous. Evil.

“Be careful! This thing feels like a nightmare!”

Those blue lights narrowed, and the thing laughed. The sound was hideous. A wet, gasping thing that made me feel dirty just listening to it.

It spoke, and its voice sounded like it belonged to someone else, smooth and collected. “I will show you nightmares, little one.”

My throat went dry. It was intelligent.

“Ahhh, a morsel that can understand me. A rare treat.”

It was only then that I realized the thing wasn’t speaking English. It was using one of the Algonquian languages. Maybe Abenaki?

I racked my brain for a monster that felt like this thing that would speak an Algonquian language. Rodgers could have told me in an instant, but it took me several more seconds of terrified thought before I landed on a name.

Wendigo.

I racked my brain for more information. They were evil spirits that possessed people or people consumed by hunger and greed, I was pretty sure. But what were their weaknesses?

Before I could think of anything useful, it attacked.

A black claw whipped out faster than I could track, so fast that Blair only managed to get an arm up before it slammed into her.

The hit launched Blair so fast that her wake left a hole in the mists.

Holy shit.

Before I could properly panic, Blair came racing back in.

The wendigo slashed out, and she ducked under it and tore into it with claws of her own.

Black blood sprayed, and the wendigo bellowed. The sound tore through the night like an elk’s call from hell, and I had to clap my hands over my ears.

The wendigo kicked the ground, tearing up a massive patch of soil and sending it straight into Blair’s face.

She stumbled but still managed to dodge its following lunge. She scraped at her face before throwing herself back into the fight.

The crack of flesh against bone filled the air, and the speed of their blows kept ramping up until I struggled to track what was happening.

If the vampires had been moving like this, I would have died instantly.

I struggled to think of a way to help.

Well, shooting the hell out of things hasn’t really let you down so far. A helpful corner of my mind pointed out.

I grabbed my rifle. I couldn’t have more than a handful of shots left, so I had to make these count.

I sighted but didn’t rest my finger on the trigger. With the two dancing around each other, I didn’t have anything close to a clean shot.

And while shooting Blair by accident would only be a mild annoyance to her on its own, the distraction might get her killed.

The monster raked its claws down, and Blair dodged, then rushed inside its massive range. She drove a fist into its knee with a crack.

The wendigo bellowed again and, before she could react, caught her with a backhand that cracked like a gunshot.

Blair flew back like she’d been launched from a cannon.

She slammed into a tree on the other side of the clearing without losing speed, and wood splintered.

It was hard to make her out through the mist, but I could tell she wasn’t moving.

The wendigo started toward her.

Panic laced with fury bubbled in my gut.

I had a clear shot now.

I unloaded into the monster, aiming for the knee Blair had punched.

As the bullets ripped into it, I poured my magic against it like I was trying to forge a link. I had no idea if that would work. Some mythology about these things said they were spirits, but that could have been total bunk.

But it was definitely hungry, and I had just flashed magic at it after taking a pot shot.

It turned and stared at me.

Well…shit.

It charged, its massive legs eating the distance between us in a heartbeat.

“SHIT!”

It lashed out, and its gleaming claws tore into the tree below me.

Wood crunched, and the tree started to tip.

“No, no, no!” I fell backward as the massive tree toppled.

I tried to do something, anything, but before I fully understood what was happening, my tree crashed into one of its brothers.

The impact flung me from the branches, and by dumb luck, I crashed into another tree.

My back hit the trunk, and my luck ran out.

Agony erupted from my back and stomach.

My vision swam, and I struggled to pull my thoughts together through the pain.

I looked down. The jagged end of a dead branch protruded from the right of my stomach, Its tip stained red.

My mind stalled for a beat. I was impaled. I had landed on another large branch but had enough momentum to smack against the trunk.

And I was impaled.

My mind kept circling back to that point. Like a magnet that drew my eyes, I couldn’t look away from the bloody point.

Memories roiled.

Markus, his knife lodged in my guts, the snarl on his lips, the scent of burning food— Dilly stabbed me. Why? What had I ever done? How could she—Aera stuck the knife in deep.

I tried to suck in a breath, to control the torrent of memories, but I couldn’t make my lungs listen to me.

I tried again, and as soon as I had a breath, I screamed.

~<>~<>~

Blair drifted. Her head hurt, and she was…fighting? What was she fighting? Where was she? And why was she so angry?

The fury boiled in her gut, choking her. Demanding that she act, that she fight and conqueror.

And her Bond! It was so strong—too strong. Why had she pushed it so far? What had she been doing?

Alder screamed like he was dying.

The sound punched through the fog like a pickax, and Blair reached out to her Bond and pulled.

Her fury redoubled, and she drew even more. Rage burned away the fog in her brain, but she didn’t stop pulling.

This monster was stronger than her. It was faster. And it was trying to kill Alder.

Pain rolled down her back as her spine healed with a snap.

She took a deep breath of cold air as she opened her eyes.

She pulled herself from the crater in the tree and the fractures in her skull healed.

A scent hit her nose.

Blood.

Alder’s blood.

Blair’s world went red.

~<>~<>~

My scream whimpered out as the wendigo closed in.

The mist parted, and the monster's face pulled me back to the present.

It had the skull of a deer but twisted. its flaming blue eyes hovered in empty black sockets, and its lower jaw jutted out, filled with jagged, bloodstained teeth.

It made a clicking noise and tilted its head.

It leaned close and took a deep breath. “Wonderful.”

It opened its jaws wide, mist curling out to outline its bones. I stiffened. I needed to get my pistol out!

My side throbbed, and my vision wavered as I reached for the gun.

The monster froze.

It sighed, its icy breath sending goosebumps down my chest.

“It seems the little wolf wants her turn first.”

It turned, and then Blair was in front of it, claws flashing.

I hadn’t even seen her move!

The wendigo matched her, lashing out with inhuman speed.

Something had changed. Blair fought with none of the grace or skill from before. She didn’t even fight like a person.

She tore and bit, headless of the damage she took, and the wendigo did the same.

Blair took a slash to the chest but didn’t pause, accepting the hit to slam a kick into its thigh.

The monster staggered, and Blair was there to capitalize.

She leaped, crashing into its side like a cannonball.

The wendigo collapsed, and the two turned into a growling ball of thrashing limbs and flashing jaws.

They broke apart with a spray of blood, and the wendigo back-peddled on all fours, it's head close to the ground.

Blair started to circle it, and the wendigo turned to keep track of her, its eyes narrowed.

She feinted, and the monster tensed.

Blair backed off and kept backing off until she vanished into the mist.

I kept track of her with my aura, but the wendigo didn’t have the luxury. Its antlered head thrashed from side to side as it searched.

I saw a tree shake behind the wendigo. It spun toward the tree, but nothing happened. Another tree shook from another direction, and then another.

The monster spun as the forest seemed to shake around it.

With my aura I sensed Blair rocketing from tree to tree like a pinball. The speed and grace needed for that was so far past human that it was staggering.

The wendigo spun towards a particularly loud tree, and Blair burst from the mist to slam into its back.

Blood sprayed and It bellowed as she tore at it. The mist quaked.

It reached back with a boneless motion and hurled Blair off.

She hit the ground and bounced. Before she came to a stop, the beast was on her, lashing out with a kick. The blow blasted her into a tree, which snapped in half from the impact.

Blair came to a stop as the tree landed near the wendigo. She climbed to her feet, unphased.

The wendigo cocked its head, then kicked the tree at her.

Blair dashed to the side, dropping to all fours for a moment as the tree passed above her.

She pivoted, dirt spraying with the motion as she charged back in.

They met, and I lost track of the fight.

I could only see shaking mists and blurs of motion as the two tore the clearing apart.

A stomp caused a small crater, a throw dug a trench, and more trees toppled.

It raged for minutes. Though with the whole being impaled thing, those minutes stretched. But the agony in my side was a distant second in my mind.

The helpless fear was far, far worse.

All I could do was watch—literally stuck here, as Blair fought for our lives.

The fight raged back and forth until the wendigo made a mistake. It dodged back from Blair’s rush and stumbled over a fallen tree.

Blair didn’t hesitate. She leaped and swept a devastating kick at its head, the mist trailing her foot like an afterimage.

The wendigo’s motions blurred, and a black claw swept up.

It met Blair’s leg mid-thigh and cut straight through. Her leg tumbled into the air with a spray of red against the white.

The wendigo smiled.

I froze.

Blair didn’t.

Without pausing for an instant, Blair twisted in mid-air, and her hand lashed out.

She caught her spinning leg and, with a sound like shattering ice, slammed it through the wendigo’s chest.

They collapsed to the ground in a heap.

The wendigo’s blue eyes turned to Blair, disbelieving, and then the flames froze over. A wave of blue fire spread over the wendigo, leaving ice in its place.

Blair’s shoulders heaved and she slowly brought her fist down on its chest. The monster shattered.

Blair stared down at the chunks of her enemy, blond hair falling around her like a matted veil.

She threw her head back and howled.

The triumphant sound pierced the night, bowling over the other cries and screams for a brief moment.

I stared, a mix of horror and awe swirling in my chest.

Her howl tapered off, and she collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

I blinked and slowly looked around.

“Oh.”

I was trapped at least thirteen feet in the air, stuck to a tree, and Blair was unconscious on the forest floor, probably bleeding out.

And the night was still filled with the screams of the Hoard.

A tide of panic started to rise up, but I crushed it. Blair didn’t have time for me to panic.

First things first, I needed to make myself less of a target.

I veiled myself with a thought. I was still coated in magic residue, but I couldn’t help that.

I hadn’t sensed any undead nearby before veiling, and I had a feeling that they would take a minute to come for me again.

The wendigo had black blood on its teeth. I was pretty sure it had chomped down on other undead.

So, first, I had to find a way down, then stabilize Blair and get her somewhere safe. Or at least safer than out in the open.

I looked down at the branch protruding from my gut. The sight made my stomach clench, which sent a fresh wave of agony through my side.

The tree had more than enough branches for me to climb down, but I had to find a way to free myself first.

I couldn’t pull the branch out. Not only could I make the wound worse by pulling it out, but the branch was doing a pretty good job at staunching the blood loss as it was. If I pulled it, I might bleed out.

But the dead branch was still attached to the tree.

My eyes flicked to Blair. I didn’t have time.

Werewolf healing was intense, but it had limits. She could be dying.

Dying because she came here to help me.

I swallowed. This was going to suck.

I unzipped my vest and coat and grabbed my shirt. Careful to avoid putting pressure on my side the best I could, I took a small pocket knife from my tac vest and started cutting strips of cloth out.

I wrapped the makeshift bandages around the branch and my waist in a figure-eight pattern, trying to immobilize it as much as possible.

I took a deep breath. No hesitating.

I gripped the several inches of wood jutting from my stomach with one hand, wincing at the feel of my cooling blood.

I pulled myself forward just enough to get my other hand on the branch's base. The feeling of the wood scraping my insides caused bile to rise in my throat, but I forced it down. No time.

I took a deep breath. How many of those had I taken in the last minute?

I did my best to think about my breathing habits as I slid myself off the branch I was sitting on.

All my weight suddenly crashed onto the broken branch, and I pushed with my arms, desperately trying to move the pressure to my arms and off my guts.

Break, come on, you bastard! Break!

Blood began to stain my makeshift bandages.

The branch held for a few agonizing seconds before giving way with a wet crack!

I dropped and immediately threw my hands out.

I caught a branch on the way down, and pain tore through my shoulders.

I hung there for a second, my mind white with pain.

Blair is bleeding on the ground.

Gasping, my side feeling like it was stuffed with coals, I started to climb down.

The whole getting impaled thing took up most of my focus, but the climb informed me that getting flung into a tree had done more damage than just the stabbing.

My back and shoulders protested with every motion, and I was pretty sure I might have cracked a rib. Even my legs were twinging.

I felt like I’d been in a car wreck.

But none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was getting to the bottom.

It wasn’t a hard climb, there were plenty of branches, but I forced myself to move carefully. Blair couldn’t afford for me to fall.

I reached the ground, and my legs almost buckled.

I straightened and started for Blair.

Her fight had devastated the landscape. The once beautiful clearing covered in craters, deep trenches, and new hills.

Which made getting to Blair a lot harder. I couldn’t just sprint over. If I fell, I wasn’t sure I could get back up. So I had to fight the urge to rush with every step.

I almost fell twice, but I made it to her side in under a minute.

When I saw her up close, my heart stopped. She was covered in blood from head to toe, and the few parts of her that weren’t were a sickly grey. She looked like a fresh corpse.

Her chest rose, and I let myself breathe.

Not dead.

I carefully dropped to my knees. Even moving as slowly as I could, the pressure on my side had me seeing spots.

I forced my eyes to focus.

I needed to triage her injuries.

Her fucking leg is missing, what do you think needs your attention first?

Her thigh had partially closed, but that wasn’t good enough. Blood still dripped from the stump, and three long gashes across her stomach hadn’t healed at all.

I pulled my belt off and wrapped it around her upper thigh. With a grunt, I cinched it as tightly as I could.

Makeshift tourniquet done, I quickly cut more of my shirt off and wrapped her stump.

It wasn’t sterile bandages, but I was working with what I had.

I turned my attention to her stomach. The wendigo had cut deep, the three furrows each wide enough to require stitches, which I didn’t have. I swallowed, trying to ignore the reek of blood, and gently dabbed at the wounds with bandage. If the claws had gone too deep…

I sighed. It hadn’t made it through her abdominal wall, thank god.

As I studied the wounds, I realized something else was wrong. Blair was thin. All the werewolves I had seen looked like they could impersonate a greek statue, and Blair, in particular, was absolutely built.

Now she looked skinnier than I did. I couldn’t even gauge how much weight she had lost.

Her body is eating itself.

I moved faster.

I was running out of shirt to cut, so I sacrificed Blair’s for the cause.

It was a struggle to find parts of her top that weren’t already covered in blood, but I managed to salvage enough material to cover the gashes. Getting the bandages under her was a pain—literally—but I patched the wounds the best I could.

She was as stable as I could get her.

On to step three. Blair needed food and shelter, which meant I had to move her. If I left her here to grab food, she would be a free meal to any passing undead, and besides, I wasn’t sure if I could make more than one trip.

I glanced around at the devastated landscape. This part was also going to suck.

Blair and the wendigo had fallen on the top of a small, lopsided hill. I eyeballed it for a second.

…it’ll do.

I walked around the steep side of the hill and got a firm grip on Blair’s leg and shoulder.

I glanced down at the stick and swallowed.

Stop. Hesitating.

I rocked Blair slightly. One, two, three! I pulled, rolling her off the hill and onto my shoulders.

Pain.

A low whine tore past my lips, and warm blood trickled down my back and front.

My balance wavered, and my focus sharpened.

If I fell, I wasn’t getting up again.

I straightened, pushing through the burning agony in my side. Even with her leg missing and muscles atrophied, I was barely strong enough to carry her.

Move.

I started walking, and each step made the pain worse. I didn’t stop—couldn’t stop. Blair needed me to keep moving, and by god, I was going to.

All of my attention, every speck of focus I had bent towards the next step. I fell into a fugue. The was nothing except the weight on my back, the pain in my side, and the next step.

I made it most of the way to my house before something went wrong. The ground under my foot shifted, and I started to fall.

No!

I snapped my foot out, catching myself, but all our weight came down on my right side. I felt the branch shift inside me, and fresh blood gushed out.

Blair’s weight pressed down on my aching shoulders, and my side spasmed.

I didn’t have the words to describe the pain, but I didn’t need to. I just needed to keep walking.

The next step. Take the next step.

I did. Then I took the one after that and the one after that. I paused at my back door, and it took me a few seconds to realize I needed to open it.

I slipped inside, careful to avoid smacking Blair into the doorframe.

Where did I set her down? My eyes flicked to my cellar, and I walked to the edge. That could work? It was only a single entrance, easy to defend, but we would be trapped there if something came for us. And how was I supposed to get Blair down there? Maybe set her down, get in, then lower her?

There was more than enough food in there for her to heal.

But could I lift her again if I set her down? Was I strong enough-

My legs gave out. I had pushed too far, and my body didn’t care how determined I was.

We toppled into the cellar, and I tried to guide Blair’s fall the best I could. She landed in the clear section with a thud, and my back slammed into the cans.

The branch struck a can dead on, and I blacked out.

When I woke, I wasn’t being eaten by a zombie, so I couldn’t have been out that long.

My side pulsed, and I felt like I had a literal fire burning inside me. A quick glance told me my wrappings had kept the branch from getting shoved out, but there was even more blood than before.

I wanted to close my eyes again and pray for unconsciousness, but I wasn’t done yet.

With a soft grunt, I pulled myself to Blair’s side.

I reached over and snatched a can of broth. It was one with a tabbed lid, thankfully. I didn’t want to try and open a can with my pocket knife right now.

I opened it and put the can to Blair’s lips. She didn’t give any signs of waking, but her nose twitched, and she took a deep pull of the broth.

I pulled the can back slightly, making sure she didn’t choke. She swallowed, and her breathing didn’t slow, so I moved the can back.

She quickly finished the can, and I grabbed another.

The process repeated four more times until her eyes snapped open. They were still blood red, and the wild, inhuman cast was back in full swing. Blair stared at me, and it felt like being studied by a wild animal.

I reached over and grabbed a can of spam. As soon as I opened it, her eyes narrowed. She snatched the can and devoured the meat.

I opened another can, and after she tore through that just as quickly as the first, I got to work. I opened cans as fast as possible, and Blair devoured their contents just as quickly .

I saw her stomach writhe under the bandages, and Blair paused for a breath, setting down her current can to look herself over. She made her index finger into a claw and sliced through the bandages. I watched as her skin knit itself closed.

She frowned at her missing leg and sliced through the tourniquet.

I blinked. I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to do that, but it wasn’t like I could stop her.

I saw her thigh writhing under its wrappings as her stomach had, and I laid back.

She was healing. She was okay.

I closed my eyes.

~<>~<>~

A flood of familiar magic on a scale unlike anything I had ever felt crashed over me.

My eyes shot open.

The power coursed around me like the tide. It was overwhelming. It was inhuman. Everywhere I looked, the world was tinted a deep violet.

I blinked. Where had I felt this power before?

I waved my hand through the air. …Spirit magic. But this amount was insane. It was several orders of magnitude above what I had done in the Dome. I didn’t know mages could do something like this.

Blair shifted, which tore my attention away from the thick haze of magic.

Half the cans in the cellar were empty, and she was seated in front of me, her gaze locked on the cellar entrance.

Blackness started creeping into my vision. I tried to push it away, but I was so, so tired.

I blinked, and the darkness pounced.

~<>~<>~

I woke with a jolt. I had to move had to- to- I blinked and looked around. Everything was blurry, and the world was made up of dark shapes rushing around me.

Bobby’s voice cut through the haze. “Hold on, Alder! The healers are coming. Just hold on!” One of the dark shapes moved and-

The man pressed his hands against my side, and my flesh quaked. Skin shifted and stretched as chunks of wood wriggled out of me like maggots. I gasped for breaths that wouldn’t come. The pain was unlike anything I had ever felt, but it was nothing to the feeling of my guts rearranging themselves. I finally pulled in a breath and screamed.

~<>~<>~

A raven's call pulled me from sleep. It was one of those snap transitions—no groggy in between here. One second I was in empty blackness. The next, I was cursing that I had been mocked by those stupid birds so many times I could recognize their caws in my sleep.

I was alive, which was shocking, all things considered.

My entire body felt like one massive bruise, and my throat was doing its best impression of a desert, but I was alive.

The memory of my guts moving around inside me like snakes snapped my eyes open. I leaned up slightly, or at least, I tried to. A wave of pain and weakness rushed through me, and all I managed was a weak twitch.

I sighed and stared at the wooden ceiling. This was the fourth guest room on the third floor. There was a crack in the ceiling that had always bothered Niall, but Bram had liked it, so he never patched it.

I scanned the room and noticed an IV bag hanging beside my bed. I blinked and glanced toward my arm. Sure enough, I was pricked. Damn, how did I miss that?

I took a deep breath, the air smelled like flowers and cotton.

I tried to move again, albeit much slower. I managed to move my head just enough to look at myself.

It wasn’t a pretty sight. More of me was bruised than not, and from the pain radiating from my ribs and back, at least one of them was cracked or broken.

Under the fresh bruises and old scars was a small hospital's worth of bandages. Mainly around my right side, but a few were on my shoulder as well.

Why my shoulder? Oh, right. The bog hag. I totally forgot about her.

The door opened, and Bobby walked in only to freeze, a sandwich halfway to his lips.

“Sup,” I croaked.

Bobby turned his head and yelled out the door. “He’s awake!”

Several ghosts zipped through the walls, but before I could even make a bad joke, Blair skidded through the door.

The words died in my throat. The relief choked me. She was okay. Hell, not only was she still alive, she was walking on two legs!

I didn’t know if they had reattached it or she’d regrown it, but either way, she was okay.

I sagged back into the bed.

“You-“ I swallowed. “You look a lot better than I do.”

A complicated mix of expressions crossed her face before she dropped to her knees and wrapped me in a careful hug.

“How long was I out?”

“Three days,” she whispered.

“It-“ her voice hitched. “It took three healers just to get you stable.”

Slowly, careful not to jostle my IV, I returned the hug.

Rodgers smiled at me from near the window, and Ben looked like he was about to cry.

I closed my eyes.

I was beat to hell. A war was on our doorstep, the Clans knew about me—everything was about to change.

But despite all that, in the small guest room in a formerly haunted mansion, surrounded by people that cared about me, I felt better than I had in a long, long time.