Even as his victim collapses beneath him, others close in. There’s one, two, three, four, five⁠—

A curse strikes my flank, interrupting my count of the assailants, and I yowl at the blistering pain.

I snap back into my own head with a sharp inhale.

No, no, no.

I scramble out of Kane’s arms.

“Selene, what’s going on?”

“My familiar is being attacked.”

In one fluid movement, I hop over the wood railing, my magic seamlessly assisting me, and I dash toward the trees.

“Selene!” Kane calls after me. “Fuck.”

I hear the door to the cabin open behind me and Kane shouting to his pack mates, but it’s all background static as far as I’m concerned. Even the explosive pain that’s spreading across my torso isn’t enough to deter me.

Terror is eclipsing everything but my need to save Nero.

SELENE, WHAT IS WRONG? Memnon’s voice booms across our bond.

Nero, I sob. Supernaturals have cornered Nero, and they’re hurting him.

On the other end of the cord that links me to the sorcerer, I sense him go very quiet and very cold.

Where is he?

The Everwoods.

I’m coming. It’s a vow and a threat.

Even that, however, might not be enough.

By then, it might be too late. I might be too late.

Oh Goddess, oh Goddess.

I flood my connection to Nero with as much power as I possibly can. I don’t know that it will do anything for him like it would for me, but it’s the best solution my panic-laced mind can come up with.

“Find my panther,” I command my magic in Sarmatian.

A ribbon of it snakes out of me, weaving through the trees in the same direction my intuition has already been leading me. I run as fast as my legs can carry me, uncaring about my ragged breathing. Even my power is well-honed for once, fluidly catching me when I trip over a fallen branch and helping me right myself before I hit the earth.

Familiars are tied to their supernatural, the magical bond lengthening and strengthening their lives. But they can be killed. It’s been known to happen.

At that petrifying thought, I force more magic down my bond with Nero and force my legs faster, even as my lungs scream and my body feels like it’s incinerating itself from the inside out.

Far away, a chorus of howls fills up the night air. Unlike earlier, there’s no mistaking these sounds. They’re war cries.

I nearly lose my footing. The lycanthropes are coming to my aid. Despite turning Kane down, he summoned them. I sob a little as I run.

A sharp, slashing pain blooms in my stomach, this one much deeper than the others, and I nearly trip over my own feet at the onslaught of it.

I slip into Nero’s head for a split second, but it’s long enough to realize that he’s been mortally injured.

I choke on a scream.

No.

Before he was Nero, he was Ferox. Same soul, different bodies. When I found him in Rome, I made a vow to cherish and protect the panther for the rest of my life.

I intended to keep that promise. I will keep that promise.

Hold on, Nero, I tell him. I’ll be there soon.

My head is too panicked for a fancy spell. All I manage is a simple one⁠—

Make me swift as the wind, I silently command my magic.

I’ve been sprinting, but now my pace picks up, straining my muscles and tendons to the brink of their capacity. I feel the wind at my back and on my face, and it feels as though I could melt into it, as though we are one. I blow past the boundary line marking the shifters’ territory from the witches, following the ribbon of my magic.

I must be getting close.

I peer through Nero’s eyes once more, trying to focus over the debilitating pain and the chill that’s filling my familiar’s body.

There are at least five supernaturals, witches if I had to guess. Two of them look vaguely familiar, but it’s hard to tell. Cat eyes see things differently, and the night cloaks so much. But I sense there are two others who are lying on the ground. The smell of their blood tinges the air.

A couple of the supernaturals are peering beyond Nero, looking for me.

“Any sign of the witch?”

“No, but she’s coming. You can see the line of her magic. She knows her familiar is hurt.”

“Fuck her, I’m hurt.”

As they squabble, I return to my own mind and funnel more power down my bond. They likely hurt my familiar to lure me out.

Wind is whipping through my hair, and tears are slipping out the corners of my eyes, but beneath my grief and fear, violence rises in me, ancient and eager. I can feel the edge of it staining my power as my magic gathers in my palms. Those witches are fucking marked.

Up ahead, the trail of my magic comes to an abrupt end. I can’t see my familiar, but I do notice the witches around him. A couple magical orbs hover in the sky above them, illuminating their forms.

“There she is.”

I don’t know which person announces it, but I’m already dragging my arm back, my power coalescing in my palm.

“Explode,” I command.

And then I throw it.

BOOM!

Magic and fire detonate in the air, blowing back the circle of witches, revealing the slumped shape of my familiar.

The pain that lances through me at the sight of him nearly brings me to my knees.

Make them pay. Memnon’s voice is icy, wrathful.

More magic floods down my arm and into my palm.

“Explode.” I throw it at the witches, uncaring that it might blow limbs apart.

My power detonates just above them, throwing the witches farther from my familiar. Several of them scream, and fire has broken out on one of them. I see the woman frantically try to put it out.

The rage that surges through my blood is otherworldly. There’s a hungry, sinister part of me that needs to end each one of them slowly, but the moment my eyes return to Nero, it dissolves away.

My familiar lies unmoving on the ground. In the darkness, I can just make out the sheen of blood matting his fur.

I can’t breathe over the pain—both physical and emotional—choking the life out of me.

I close the last of the distance between us and fall to Nero’s side, my knees landing in a pool of cooling blood. At first glance, my panther looks dead. He’s too motionless. But when I slip down our bond and into his head, I can feel him still there. That’s the extent of my reassurance, however, because an instant later, I feel the full weight of his pain. It’s more than agony; it’s death throes.

I bite back a sob.

“You’re not dying on me. Vekahi.” Heal. I whisper the Sarmatian word, pressing a hand against his blood-matted fur. My magic soaks into his body, thick like honey.

It’s difficult to sense what it’s repairing, but I think…I think that bad wound, the one that should’ve done him in, is healing. Maybe I’m just being overly hopeful.

I run a hand over his cheek, and he makes a soft, huffing noise.

“It’s okay, big guy,” I reassure him. “I’ve got you. You’re not dying.”

My hand continues down his back, only stopping when my fingers catch on a piece of paper…and a nailhead that pins it to my familiar.

They literally nailed a note into Nero’s skin.

My hands begin to tremble as my power vibrates in me. I’m seeing red—red like blood, red like pain, red like wrath.

Before I can act on it, I hear a whisper. Seconds later, a spell hits my back, searing through the cloth and sizzling my skin. Another curse quickly follows, slicing into my shoulder.

I grunt, slumping forward over Nero, my magic still healing him.

My attacker murmurs again, the incantation too low to hear, and I brace myself, using my body as a shield. The curse grazes the side of my temple. Pain bursts from behind my eyes, and for several seconds, I can see nothing—no red vision, no mutilated familiar, nothing.