Page 37 of Dance With Death

“Holly,” I urge as the girl’s face grows paler in the milky moonlight. “It’s Violet. You’ll be okay.”

Get Holly medical help. I slide my hands beneath her back. “Violet!” Rowan’s urgent voice stops me as. “Don’t move Holly.”

“We need to get Holly to the hospital,” I rasp. “She’s losing blood. How much blood can humans lose before they…” Don’t say it. Don’t even think the word.

“Holly might be injured in other ways. Moving her could make things worse.” He’s distant, frozen, staring at how Holly’s blood covers my hands when I withdraw them.

The same thought whirls around and around. What if she dies? Should I bring her back? My teeth clench, eyes squeezing shut again. Stop.

Behind me, Rowan makes a phone call, and I bend over Holly, whispering at her to hold on, that help’s coming. Holly’s breathing shallows, and tears push past my eyes.

A familiar hand touches my back. “Is that who you followed?” asks Rowan as he kneels beside me. “The shifter?”

I slide a look at the dead wolf. “No. I chased a different one.”

“Did you kill this shifter?” I shake my head. “The other?”

“No. This one was already dead.” I take a shuddery breath. “The other ran. How long until help arrives?”

“An ambulance is on the way already. Someone called a few minutes before me.”

I glance over my shoulder. “Marci?”

“I don’t think so. Marci left the woods with the other girls as soon as you disappeared. I guess they wanted to escape your interrogation.”

“Is Holly going to die? I don’t know what happens. People I know don’t die,” I croak out. “What else can I do, Rowan?”

The hand rubbing my back stills. “Nothing, Violet. We wait.” Leaning around me, Rowan takes Holly’s wrist and presses fingers to her pulse point. “Holly’s pulse isn’t weak. The injuries didn’t hit any organs or she’d be… worse, but I can’t be sure.”

“I hope you’re right.” I swallow hard. “Because whoever did this intended to hurt Holly badly.”

But worse? Holly shouldn’t be like this at all.

I’ve encountered a lot since arriving at Thornwood Academy, my life gradually spinning out of control as I left behind the ordered, solitary one I spent on the family estate. My greatest worry once the accusations against me started was controlling the hybrid within, but the effects of each connection to another person overwhelm me as much as anything. More than. The bond with Rowan triggered all this on the evening we connected—the part that forces me to step outside myself and feel keeps growing, however hard I resist.

Now, I wish I’d left Thornwood the same day I arrived, as planned. I wish I’d never tangled with these people. I never imagined experiencing a pain that suffocates me all because I cared about someone who could die. However great my obsession with death, nobody in my old life could experience the state permanently.

I hear the sirens before Rowan, along with the sound of tires moving along the makeshift path to find a place as close as possible to the impassible area surrounding the clearing.

“Look after Holly, Rowan,” I say. “I can’t be here. I was never here. You know why.”

He nods and for the first time Rowan’s fear and anguish slip through my own barriers of shock. Seizing hold of him, we kneel together in a hug tighter than ever before, and I suck back the emotion that doesn’t help Violet Blackwood stay in control.

This nightmare shouldn’t be happening to Holly, and a new certainty that Viktor is responsible bites at my heart. Because I’m betting that the dead wolf lying beside Holly is a necromancer’s shifter construct.

A wolf ripped through Holly’s body, but I tore through her life.

13

GRAYSON

Holly’s disappearance put a wedge between me and Violet just when things between us improved. I can’t forget her words the night we fought Viktor—if Holly dies, you’re dead to me. We’ve spoken since, but never alone, and the edge remains between us. I’d argue she’s unfair to me since Rowan also stopped her from attacking Viktor but I understand her ‘Violet logic’: I stopped her from delivering the killing blow.

I hope Holly doesn’t die. If I even shared those words, I’d infuriate Violet because she refuses to accept that Holly might. And, surely, she’s considered the worse-than-death possibility? Viktor’s a freaking necromancer. He created constructs and splintered Leif’s mind; there’s no guarantee Holly will return intact.

Man, I hate thinking along these lines, but I’m a realist. Violet’s family may’ve sheltered her, but she’s learning how this world works. I want to be there for Violet if something happens to Holly but avoiding her might be less painful if that situation arises.

Dorian may not want to say so, but he knows that I did the right thing in keeping Viktor alive. The bastard can still get what he deserves when caught, and if his crimes include harming Holly, Viktor will get double what Violet wanted to do to him that night.

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