Page 131 of A Wolfe in the Woods

It was a fair size with pale feathers marked by strange flecks of white-and-silver markings that glimmered faintly in the dark.

Its large eyes caught the moonlight and fractured it, shimmering like glass. Deep blues and purples layered with tiny points of light, like tiny galaxies were trapped behind its gaze. The longer I looked, the deeper they seemed to go.

I stared, breath caught.

The owl looked at me. Then turned its head deliberately toward the path on the left…and waited.

The anxiety in my chest eased and a strange, steady calm washed over me.

The owl lifted silently and glided down the left path, slow as if asking me to follow it. Behind me, branches snapped, and I heard footsteps growing louder.

I didn’t think. I followed the owl.

As I ran, I silently prayed a single, desperate hope into the dark.Please let this be the right choice. Please let me live long enough to see him again.

And then the forest swallowed me whole.

Behind me, I heard it. Low at first, then rising.

Howling.

The hunt had already begun.

CHAPTER 38

JONATHAN

My vision collapsed as the edges of the world bled into shadows while the snarls of the Lycans, the wind whipping through the trees, and Erik’s voice slowly faded away.

For a moment I didn’t even know I was still thinking. It was black. I couldn’t hear anything and I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t feel…I couldn’t smell… Where was I?

And then, a cold realization slowly crept in…

Had I died?

The last thing I remembered was Erik’s fangs closing on my throat. Was this…what came after?

Blanchette’s face surfaced in the darkness. The memory of her wasn’t clear at first. It moved through the void like a reflection in deep water as nothing more than a shape. A feeling. Then her eyes. Then came the way she laughed when she was trying not to. The warmth of her hand against mine. Her lips.

I had a sad disappointing thought that I had failed her.

It settled with a weight that felt heavier than any mortal wound. Erik had her somewhere in this forest, nearby, and yet I had walked straight into his trap.

I hadfailedto protect her.

And she’s still out there alone,I thought as anguish rose.

I hated to admit it, but I wanted to cry. But I couldn’t feel my face, didn’t know if I even had tears. The silence stretched while a million thoughts blazed through my mind.

Then something appeared.

At first it was just a faint point of light far off in the distance, so small it could have been mistaken for a tiny star. It hovered in the black space ahead of me, unmoving and muted.

I watched it grow.

The change was so subtle I thought it might have been my imagination. The light didn’t move toward me so much as the darkness around it began to pull inward. The tiny star widened, trembling softly against the endless black.

For a moment I wondered if this was what death looked like—some distant doorway opening somewhere beyond reach.