Page 24 of Dance With Death

I wince as Violet squeezes my upper arm. Her whole body straightens and tenses as she pulls me further into the shadows cast by the academy’s taller tower.

I stumble at the force. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Rowan,” she urges, and yanks Rowan toward us before crouching. “Look.”

My eyes strain as I focus on where Violet points to, crouching alongside her. Rowan sits on the ground on her other side and sighs. “Tell me what you see.”

The canine figure is barely visible to me as it slinks from the direction of the bordering woods, belly low to the ground. Only when the creature moves closer to Darwin house do I appreciate how bloody big the thing is.

“Shifter,” whispers Violet.

On cue, Rowan and I grab one of her arms each before she can stand. “No. Watch,” I say.

“But—”

“Violet.”

She thins her lips, and Rowan chuckles at me silencing her.

The shifter continues to prowl across the lawns headed straight for Darwin House, not leaving the safety of the shadows for a second. My knotted stomach unties slightly when the wolf doesn’t circle around to the front of the building. They stop beneath the windows spanning the back of Darwin House and tips their head upwards. Yellow eyes shine through the gloom,

“They’re looking for a way in,” Rowan whispers. “How well can wolf shifters climb? What if there’s an open window?”

“No. Shifting to human form would make more sense if they wanted to sneak into the building,” says Violet.

“And wolves can jump far but not climb all the way up a wall,” I add.

“Then what are they doing?” asks Rowan. “Waiting for a victim to walk out?”

“Not until the full moon, remember?” says Violet.

Realization strikes me. “Violet. Your room faces this way. The shifter could be looking for you?”

“One way to find out,” she remarks.

“No!”

Too late. Violet already blurred half the distance between us and the shifter, who’s now hiding closer to the building’s wall.

Rowan swears. “Don’t follow,” he says. “If the shifter is stupid enough to attack, Violet will uh… subdue them.”

The wolf’s head turns sharply towards Violet, but they don’t move. Neither does she. I hear her speak but not what she says, and the moment Violet takes a step towards the shifter, the animal sprints away.

Violet doesn’t pause before pursuing the wolf, the pair swallowed by the night in seconds. Light suddenly streams across the ground, and a girl screams as Violet collides with her.

“You know who the wolf is!” cries out Cassie as she’s knocked backwards onto the lawn.

I charge across, Rowan at my heels. A group of four humans with flashlights huddle together, Logan shining one into Violet’s face, as Dane and Sara stand with him.

“What are you doing?” Violet shouts. “I’ll lose the shifter!”

The humans look in bewilderment as Violet streaks into the night in the direction the shifter ran. Do I follow? Dane places a hand on my chest. “What are you doing, Leif? Is that wolf connected to Violet?”

“No! Violet is trying to catch the wolf,” I say and pull his hand from my chest.

“She shoved me out of the way.” Cassie stands on wobbly legs as Isabelle helps her up. “We were looking for the wolf, and Violet stopped us.”

“Looking for? To do what?” Rowan emerges from the dark beside me.

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