Page 88

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.Imight 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. Iwillkeep 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’mhurt.”