Page 1 of Season of the Wolf

Chapter One

Evie

Silhouetted trees resembled statues beneath the night sky.

I cleared the rail of my balcony, driving both feet deep into the snow when I landed. Naked and chuffing warm breath into the chilled night air, cold scattered across my skin in stinging pricks. With a quick scan to make sure I was alone, I ran.

Hard. Fast.

Faster than any normal human could even fathom until I cleared the newly-built wall surrounding our property—a feature I still hadn’t gotten used to.

There was no time to slow down, shift in peace. I had to make do on the run.

No turning back, Evie.

You can do this.

Youhaveto do this.

It wasn’t lost on me that the odds of penetrating the Sovereign’s camp again were slim to none. There was no telling what I’d face when I got there, but I was going anyway. Whether this endeavor would be a failure or success, I’d try.

I couldn’t afford to overthink things. My focus and intentions had to be singular.

This was for Liam.

Bone shifted over bone in a series of painfully sharp jolts, cracking beneath my skin as my feet trampled snow. I muffled a scream, replacing it with a low growl that resonated from my chest. It was all I could do to weather the pain.

With what felt like an explosion in my spine, I was on all fours, staring at fur covered limbs as I sprinted through the woods in full wolf form. The air’s scent filled my nostrils and it was different from before—what was once one smell, now broken down into many.

Glancing back, I kept the pace. It wasn’t lost on me that, last time I took off like this, I ended up with an arrow through the leg and Liam was taken; another reason I felt compelled to right the wrongs. Had it not been for me, had it not been for him protecting me, none of this would’ve happened.

I shook off that last thought, doing all I could to dispel any useless emotions. Guilt was definitely useless.

My eyes focused miles ahead, to the clearing where I stashed a bag with two changes of clothes during my dry-run. Once I made it that far, I’d be on to phase two—boarding a bus headed north.

North to track down the Sovereign’s army.

To track down the witch that hexed Liam.

I knew the success of this mission was farfetched, and probably the dumbest thing I’d ever done, but she was the only one who could fix this.

The only one who could fixhim.

At first, when I spotted light from above, I thought I imagined it, thought the moon had cast an odd hue with these keen eyes of mine. Trudging ahead, the strange orange glow flickered in my peripheral, strobing between thick trees now.

Notthe moon.

Dallas.

I picked up speed, packing snow to the ground with my paws, leaving deep tracks that brought to mind one of many reasons it would have been ideal to shift into my dragon.

But … she’d been silent for weeks.

There was no trace of her strong presence, the surge of energy pulsing from the center of my chest, through my limbs. She’d practically disappeared, retreated to some distant place within to mourn.

I suppose to her, the loss of Liam’s dragondidfeel like death. It was the link connecting her to him, and now, it was gone. Acknowledging her despair made me lose my breath every time. The tightening in my chest was a dead giveaway.

Intricate details of Dallas’ flaming wings were easily seen now as he closed the distance between us. My clean exit hadn’t been as clean as I imagined.

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