Page 9 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

The girl wasn’t lying.

Blair tests her knee again, and this time it holds. Without losinganother precious second, she sprints off to her car while the black sedan shoots down the rain-wet street and is gone.

A few minutes later, Blair steers the Panamera in the opposite direction, the car flying toward the fae gap a few miles from here.

But that black wave—it’s on her heels. Drawing closer by the second. Way too fast. Lyrian must have gathered an army of renegades around himself. Things have gone sideways here, but Blair won’t think about that now.

Not when she spots a bunch of wolves running through the woods next to the road, way too fast and big to be natural wolves.

More shifters.

She pushes the gas pedal, and the Panamera roars, but those furred and fanged beasts keep up, undoubtedly fueled by Lyrian’s magic.

Shit, I’m doomed.

One wolf jumps, landing on her car with a solid thump, denting the roof.

Long talons scratch the metal, trying to hold on, but failing as Blair yanks the steering wheel around, sending the car sliding.

A black mass of fur rolls off the hood, but another silvery one has already taken his place, running and jumping, its deadly claws missing Blair’s window by a hairsbreadth.

Instead the wolf hits the back window and shatters it, sending shards raining over her as she jerks the steering wheel to the right.

Another one down. But at least a dozen more coming.

Blair floors the gas, the landscape and the wolves chasing her turning into a blur of green and brown. She can already smell the sea which connects the two worlds—the fae world and the human world—with each other. And the fae gap a bit off the coast. All she needs to do is get there.

The only problem is the elevated coastline.

No, that’s not theonlyproblem, she corrects herself. A heavy thud shakes the car. Another wolf has landed on the roof of the car, denting the metal before huge, sharp claws tear it open like a tin can.

If Blair could summon her magic, she’d send all those furrymutants into the afterlife, but she can’t because her magic doesn’t work here.

The claws miss her head by an inch when she veers off the road again, bumping over open fields of grass now before sliding back onto the road. But the wolf’s holding on, and more are jumping toward her, the one on the roof so close she can smell his rancid breath.

She throws one last glance at the pack that’s trying to encircle her before she steers hard to the right and… off the cliff.

If they want to kill her—fine. But no fucking way will they get her magic.

The car is flying. She can only pray to gods she doesn’t believe in that her body will survive the collision with the water. That these wolves can’t swim.

She turns back in her seat to see the pack pausing at the cliff, fangs flashing. But not following. The one on the roof must have either jumped off at the last minute or is tumbling to his death.

Blair throws a last, melancholic glance at the smartphone next to her in the passenger seat. All the music stored on it will die along with her. Music she will now never be able to show to Aurora and Sofya.

Because she will never see Aurora or Sofya again. Will never be able to say goodbye.

It’s her last thought before she mashes her eyes shut.

Then, her world shatters as the car collides with the surface of the ocean.

3

Melody

My heart hammers in my chest like mad as I pelt down the rain-slicked road. I take another breath, trying to calm my nerves. My trembling fingers.

A woman.

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