Page 133 of A Wolfe in the Woods

Movement stirred at the edges of the circle with shapes rising out of the darkness like something breaking the surface of deep water. At first they looked like shadows, but they were too solid for that. Black silhouettes gathered in the mist, tall and indistinct, their forms separate from the night around them.

They penetrated and surrounded the circle.

Fear rippled through Erik’s pack instantly. Several of them turned toward the shapes, snarling and backing away as the silhouettes advanced. One of the shadows reached forward, its form stretching like smoke, and seized a Lycan by the shoulders.

He roared…but not for long. The shadow pulled him downward, swallowing him into the land. Another shape did the same to a second Lycan, dragging him from the circle floor as his claws tore uselessly at the air.

Panic erupted. Erik shouted something that sounded like an order, but his voice sounded thin against the storm building around us.

My body moved before the thought had fully formed. The distance between Erik and me vanished instantaneously as my claws tore through the air, raking across his chest and driving him backward.

He tried to recover but was too slow.

Erik twisted away with a snarl and staggered, his golden eyes wide now, confusion replacing the arrogance that had been there before.

The look in Erik’s eyes told me that whatever I had become…he had never encountered before.

I wanted blood. Not justice but blood.

This is what you’re part of,something in me whispered.Give yourself over to it.

I drove forward with a savage swipe across his jaw, my claws snapping his head sideways. Before he could regain his footing, I seized him by the throat and hurled him across the ground.

Erik landed hard, claws scraping pathetically against the stone as he tried to rise. But I was already on him. My claws hammered into his chest again and again, each strike preventing him from catching his breath.

I leaned in close, voice low. “I’m not my father,” I growled. “But this land is mine…and I protect what’s mine.”

I pressed him harder into the stone.

“And you’re trespassing.”

The final blow came as my claws ripped upward across his furred torso, lifting him up as he crashed through the invisible boundary surrounding the Circle of Thornblood. The impact shattered the barrier in a violent burst of light, throwing his body beyond the stones where he skidded across the dirt.

Then, the dark shadows slowly receded into the night. Where Erik’s pack had been seconds earlier, there was nothing. No trace of bodies. Just the Circle of Thornblood and its hollow silence.

Erik raised his head weakly, his gaze sweeping across the clearing in mounting horror as the realization settled over him. The pack he had brought with him—the Lycans who had pinned me to the ground and torn into me—were simply gone.

His eyes lifted slowly to me.

For the first time since I had met him, Erik Skoll looked afraid.

Then his strength failed as he collapsed onto the forest floor and didn’t move again.

I stood there a moment, breathing hard, with this strange power still burning through my veins. I didn’t know what had happened to me or why the forest had answered the way it had. Maybe this was what my father had been hinting at. Onlyithad savedme.

One thing was painfully clear…Blanchette was still out there somewhere.

And I needed to find her.

I needed toprotecther.

CHAPTER 39

BLANCHETTE

The moon was barely visible through the tangled branches overhead. The owl never disappeared into the night. Instead, it waited for me, flying ahead a short distance before circling back and hovering just long enough for me to catch up. Every few moments, it rotated its head back to check that I was still following.

I didn’t know how long I’d been running. All I knew was that I still heard Fang and his men crashing through the forest with their snarls.