Page 12 of A Bloom in Winter

A tremendous white wolf was attacking the coyotes, tearing into them, ripping their throats open, clawing at them. Blood, tufts of mottled fur, and flying chunks of snow kicked up by the fight marked what became a battlefield.

Except it was no contest.

That wolf dominated the lesser predators, the clap of its jaws like lightning cracking across the sky, its eyes glowing with vengeance that pierced through the lashing snow.

Mahrci looked around. The clearing where she’d put the feeding station was about thirty feet in diameter. If she made a run for it, she might be able to reach one of the pines and climb up—

Two shots sounded out.Pop! Pop!

The wolf raised its head to the sounds, and just as it did, one of the coyotes got him good, launching at his rear flank and biting him on the back leg.

Bad move. The wolf spun around and . . .

The carnage was immediate—and a reminder that she was about to be out of the fire, into the firing pan. Iron pan. Fire—fuck it. As soon as that wolf was done eating her initial attackers? It was going to have her as the entrée.

Except that had been a gun. And animals didn’t shoot.

“Help! I’m over here!” she called out.

Two figures stepped free of the ring of pine trees, and she recognized the one on the left.

“Praise Fates,” she whispered as she started to sag.

The next thing she knew, her eyes were rolling back and she was out cold. Her last thought, as she lost consciousness . . .

What the hell was her father’s head of security doing here?

To get to the coyote attack, Apex had re-formed every fifty yards through the dense pines, triangulating the sounds of the high-pitched, excited barking and the occasional scream. On the last leg, he started to smell all the blood, but he was too distracted to bother parsing out how much was vampire and what part was coyote.

The shit was fresh, there was a lot of it, and that was all that mattered.

He already had his gun up as he became corporeal for the final time, and he pulled the trigger at the sky once, twice, as he tried to make sense of the scene: There was a female vampire up on some kind of rickety platform, and a dogfight in the snow below her. Not that it was much of a fight.

The wolf was winning. Or . . . wolven, as was the case.

Dear God, was it possible? How . . . was this possible?

“Callum,” he whispered in a voice that broke.

“Shoot them,” came a hiss at his ear. “Come on, we gotta get in there and save her.”

Mayhem’s voice broke through the stupor, and Apex cuffed off a couple more bullets. But not directly into the melee. Besides, it was all but over as the wolven—

The boldest coyote, the one who’d tried to score a direct bite on the rear leg of the inevitable victor, was tackled and savaged, the smaller animal dominated as its throat was ripped open, more blood staining the white wolf’s muzzle red, the white snow pink.

That ended it. What was left of the pack ran off, scattering across the drifts.

And the wolf looked up from its prey with a growl.

As that ice-blue stare locked on Apex, its snarl eased a little.

“Shoot it!” the female gasped from the platform. “You’re next!”

No, he thought as his eyes burned.I’m not next.

He’d have to choose me to kill me, and he’s never going to do even that.

“He’s not going to hurt us,” Apex choked out.

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