Page 16 of Veil of Death and Shadow

At one point, he got so close to their fight that I flinched, expecting him to be swept away in their battle, collateral damage. But the men didn’t even pause, just continued their gnawing and clawing, their fists and paws swiping at each other as if uninterrupted.

Could they not see him? Or did they just not care, too lost to their own rage?

The wolf kicked out, its paw striking into the third man’s chest.

I blinked again, convinced my eyes were deceiving me. Had his foot passed rightthroughhim? As if he was nothing more than air?

Deep growls echoed around us, the song of their battle punctuated with grunts and loud crashes. The ground beneath them was painted in blood, but I couldn’t tell which of them it belonged to.

A sudden bolt of certainty struck through my chest, settling low in my gut. The man—the one who’d turned into a wolf—he was dead. I felt his last breath as if it was my own, felt the cloying touch of death’s grip at the base of my throat.

I shook my head, watching the wolf now as he twisted and contorted with the vampire, the two of them locked in a strange, violent dance. The wolf was there, still very much breathing, still very much alive.

In fact, the wolf seemed to be faring the better of the two now.

It didn’t matter. Whatever truth my eyes saw, I couldn’t shake the feeling. The burning conviction I couldn’t explain that the wolf’s upper hand wouldn’t last.

He was alive, but he wouldn’t be at the end of this fight. I felt it in my bones, with the same certainty that I felt Sora’s hand clutched in mine.

The crow’s claws dug into my shoulder, snapping me out of my daze.

“We need to get out of here,” I mouthed to her. “Now.”

I shivered. Every hair on my body was standing on end, static.

Death.

Death was here.

And he was coming for the wolf.

I didn’t want to be here to see it, didn’t want to be proven right.

Most importantly, I didn’t want Sora anywhere near him.

My chest was tight, my vision dotting in the corners until it became nothing but smears of color and indecipherable dancing blurs.

Sora’s arms wrapped around my chest. She squeezed, though I hardly felt the pressure. I understood, in a vague sort of way, that she was trying to calm me down, to help me regulate my panic. But this was no typical panic attack.

My vision swam in and out of focus as my breathing grew shallow and rapid—and I watched as my intuition unfolded into reality.

We were too late.

The man covered in blood buried his hand inside of the wolf’s chest, bringing the creature closer, as if dragging him into a violent hug.

The muscles in his arm pulsed and flexed as he twisted and tugged.

With little ceremony or care, he dropped the wolf to the ground.

The wolf didn’t get up, didn’t lift his head, didn’t move.

The man dropped something red and vibrant and fleshy onto the wolf.

His heart.

As the first man took a few steps back from the wolf, the third man moved closer. He knelt next to him, studying him with a removed, clinical expression. His fingers sank into the wolf’s flank as it was made of butter.

Bile crept up my throat, hot and burning. There was something so familiar about the brutality of the gesture, but I couldn’t place it.

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