A roar rolled through the snowy field, shaking the winter air like a sudden, terrifying clap of thunder. Hugh’s Friesian jerked. The roar cascaded, frothing with menace and fury, awakening some long-forgotten instinct that severed the rational part of the brain from the body and left only three options open: fight, flight, or freeze.

Curran.

The relief drowned me, turning me weightless, and for a short blissful moment I was completely and utterly happy. Curran!

The trees at the north edge of the field shook as a flock of birds took flight. Curran leaped into the snow. He rose almost eight feet tall in warrior form, a muscled terrifying blend of a man and a predatory cat, sheathed in gray fur and armed with claws the size of my fingers. His head was pure lion. He opened his mouth and roared.

An enormous Kodiak bear emerged from the brush, shaking his big furry body. Next to him a bouda giggled. I’d never been so happy to hear that eerie hair-raising cackle in my entire life.

Shapeshifters poured out of the woods, ten, twenty, more . . . Where did he get them . . . ?

He must’ve gone to the Wood and pulled our people off the hunt. He’d brought an army. Yes!

Curran broke into a run. The shapeshifters followed, raising powdery snow into the air.

“We’re done here.” Ghastek turned to the sea of vampires. “Mission aborted. Bogey to mother.”

The vampires streamed off the field.

I laughed.

Hugh turned his horse, facing me. “I tried to be nice, but I have my limits. You want to be treated like an animal, I’ll treat you like one.”

The right side of my face turned hot. A pale gold light spiraled around me. Next to me, Ghastek jerked, caught in an identical glowing tornado.

On the wall behind me, Christopher screamed, “Mistress!”

Hugh smirked.

Whatever was happening, he would die before it was over. I dashed to him across the snow, sword out. The light moved with me, streaming around me in bright sunny ribbons. I leaped over the thorns.

Hugh slid off his horse.

Curran sprinted to me, his eyes pure gold.

I struck. Hugh’s blade met mine. He bared his teeth at me.

The tornado of light around me pulsed with red, slicing through Slayer’s blade where it touched Hugh’s sword. The blade snapped in half.

No!

The field, Hugh, and Curran vanished.

13

SOMEONE JERKED THE ground from under my feet. I hurtled through empty air, weightless, my arms transparent. Bricks flashed before me. I was falling through a round shaft. Directly below me a thick metal grate blocked dark water.

I’m going to die.

I hit the grate and passed through it, as if it were air. My body plunged into the water.

Lukewarm. Wet.

My body turned solid. I kicked, surfaced, and stared at half a sword in my hand. Hugh broke my sword. He broke Slayer.

He broke my sword.