Page 34 of Curses and Casualties (Hunters Hollow #3)

Georgia

T he supernatural army sprawled around our makeshift camp looks like something out of a fantasy convention gone wild.

Vampires shouldn’t look good in hiking gear, but somehow Lucien manages it.

The fae are all elegance and eerie beauty, most of them perched on stones or hovering just a hair’s breadth above the grass, exchanging cryptic glances with the witches who are making coffee over the campfire like this is just another day.

I sit cross-legged on a weathered picnic table as dawn threatens the horizon, Evanora’s ritual kit spread before me like the world’s most terrifying chemistry set.

“Let’s see,” I mutter, running my finger down Evanora’s handwritten instructions.

The paper is soft from handling, her spidery writing familiar now.

“Luna’s heartstone—check.” The fragments pulse warm through their silk wrapping.

“Wolfsbane—check.” The dried purple flowers look innocent enough, but Ryan says they’re poisonous to wolves in large doses. “Witch’s blood to bless the moon?—”

I freeze.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

Ryan’s head snaps up from where he’s been talking strategy with Erik by the fire. Kane’s concern bleeds through our bond before Ryan even speaks. “What’s wrong?”

“We need moon water. Fresh moon water, collected under moonlight from a natural spring.” I wave the instructions at him.

“And we need to get it now while the moon is still up. Look—” I point at the sky where the moon hangs low and silver, competing with the first hints of dawn.

“Once the sun rises fully, we’re screwed. No moon water means no ritual.”

Amara glides over, somehow managing to look ethereal and put-together despite having been up all night coordinating magical defenses. “There’s a spring about half a mile away,” she says, considering the sky. “But you’ll need to hurry. The moon sets within the hour.”

“Then we go right now,” I say, already pawing through Evanora’s kit for the right container. My hands shake slightly—exhaustion, adrenaline, take your pick.

“You’re not going alone,” Ryan says immediately.

“I’ll come too,” Erik volunteers, rising from his crouch by the fire. “The woods aren’t safe. Pack scouts have been running grid patterns all night.”

“Make it four,” Ethan says, appearing from the shadows where he’d been standing watch. “Something’s got the forest spooked. Haven’t heard a single bird in hours.”

Scarlett looks up from where she’s been obsessively sharpening her knives. “I should?—”

“Stay here,” Ryan says firmly. “We need someone to coordinate if something goes wrong.”

She doesn’t like it, but she nods reluctantly. “Twenty minutes. If you’re not back in twenty, I’m coming after you.”

We slip away from camp like ghosts, or at least the others do.

My permanently damaged leg makes stealth a challenge.

Every step on the uneven forest floor sends little shots of pain up from the old injury.

Ryan hovers close, ready to steady me if needed, while Erik takes point and Ethan guards our rear.

The forest is eerily quiet. No birds, no small animals rustling in the underbrush. Even the wind seems to hold its breath.

“Too quiet,” Erik murmurs, his nostrils flaring. “Something has spooked everything for miles.”

A distant howl echoes through the trees. They’re too far away to be immediate danger, but close enough to make us all freeze.

“Pack scouts,” Ethan confirms grimly. “They probably followed Owen. Only reason they would have left him unharmed—so he could lead them to us.”

“We’ll have to work fast then,” Ryan says. His hand finds mine, squeezing it hard enough to ground me. I squeeze back, needing the reminder that even with half the supernatural world hunting us, I’m not alone here.

We push on, the moon’s light filtering through the canopy in silver streams. I can feel Luna stirring more strongly than usual, drawn by the moon’s pull. She presses against the inside of my skin like she’s trying to claw her way free.

Soon, I promise her. Next moon is ours.

Yes, she agrees, and I swear I can feel her anticipation mixing with my own.

Another howl, closer this time. Erik’s hand moves to the axe at his belt.

“We need to move faster,” he says, but he’s looking at my limp with concern.

“I’m fine,” I lie, forcing myself to pick up the pace despite the burning in my leg.

The spring appears suddenly, a perfect circle of crystal-clear water surrounded by stones worn smooth by centuries of use. The moon’s reflection on the surface is so perfect it looks like a silver coin floating on liquid glass.

“This is it,” I breathe, approaching slowly. “God, it’s beautiful.”

“Beautiful and exposed,” Ryan says, taking up position where he can watch the tree line. “Make it quick, love.”

I kneel at the water’s edge, the silver vial cool in my trembling hands. The instructions are explicit: fill from the topmost point of the moon’s reflection, don’t disturb the water before collecting, and whatever happens, don’t let the vial touch the bottom of the spring.

Easy , I tell myself, though my hands are shaking so badly the vial chatters against my fingers.

A branch snaps in the distance. We all freeze.

“Just the wind,” Ethan whispers, but his eyes are scanning the shadows.

I lower the vial carefully, exhaling to steady my hands. The water shimmers as it fills, taking on an opalescent glow that makes my skin tingle. Almost there?—

A howl erupts from the trees, close enough that I can hear the rage in it. Then another, from a different direction.

“They’ve found our trail,” Erik says, his voice tight. “We need to go. Now.”

“Almost finished,” I gasp, my hands shaking so badly I nearly drop the vial into the water. The moon water sloshes, its glow dimming. “Shit, I think I ruined it?—”

“It’s fine,” Ryan says, though he sounds anything but calm. “Cap it and let’s move.”

I fumble with the silver stopper, my fingers clumsy with fear. The howling is getting closer, and now I can hear the sound of bodies moving fast through underbrush.

“Georgia!” Ethan hisses.

“Got it!” I shove the sealed vial into my pack and scramble to my feet just as something massive crashes through the trees.

The wolf that staggers into the moonlit clearing is enormous—larger than any I’ve seen besides Ryan in his alpha form. But this one is wrong, somehow. His coat, which might have been silver-gray once, is now dark with blood. It mats his fur, drips from his muzzle, pools beneath his paws.

He limps heavily, favoring his right side where deep gashes leak crimson. His breathing is labored, wet-sounding. But it’s his eyes that catch me—wild with pain but fiercely intelligent, burning with something between fury and desperation.

“Is that?” Ethan starts, but the wolf collapses before he can finish the question.

“Oh my god,” I gasp. “Help him!”

“Georgia.” Ryan starts to object, still in protective mode.

“Look at him, Ryan!” I move toward the fallen wolf despite his weak snarl of warning. “He’s been fighting. Fighting something that was chasing us. This has to be?—”

“Magnus,” Ethan confirms, crouching low and scenting the air. “Or what’s left of him.”

The wolf tries to drag himself away from us despite clearly being unable to stand. Blood trails behind him, black in the moonlight.

“Peace, brother,” Erik says in a soothing rumble, shifting to human form to seem less threatening. “We mean no harm.”

The distant howling is getting closer. Whatever Magnus fought off, it bought us time, but not much.

“We can’t leave him,” I say firmly.

“We can’t carry him either,” Ryan points out, though I can see the conflict in his eyes. “Not if we want to outrun?—”

“Then we don’t outrun them.” I look around at our group—two warriors, an alpha, and me with my ritual components. “We get him back to camp where Amara can help him.”

Erik and Ethan exchange a look, then nod. They carefully lift the wolf between them, and he’s dead weight, barely conscious. The journey back is tense and difficult, punctuated by howls that seem to come from every direction.

By the time we stumble into camp, true dawn is breaking, painting the sky in shades of rose and gold. The moon has set, taking its silver light with it, but the vial in my pack still glows faintly.

“What the hell?” Scarlett says as we emerge from the tree line. She’s on her feet instantly, weapons still in hand. “You’re five minutes late and?—”

She freezes mid-sentence, her whole body going rigid like she’s been struck by lightning. The knives fall from nerveless fingers, clattering on the rocky ground.

“Oh my god.” The words are barely a whisper.

“He’ll be OK, Scar,” Ryan says, but Scarlett is already running toward us, her face white as bone.

“Put him down,” she orders, her voice cracking. “Carefully! Please, just—carefully.”

Erik and Ethan lower the wolf to a cleared space near the fire. In the growing daylight, the extent of his injuries is even more apparent—deep claw marks across his ribs, bite wounds on his legs, what looks like a broken rib or two. It’s a miracle he’s still alive.

Scarlett drops to her knees beside him, her hands hovering over his bloodied fur like she’s afraid to touch him. “You stupid, stubborn son of a bitch.” Her voice shakes. “Why did you do this? Why didn’t you just stay in your weird-ass castle?”

She finally touches him, burying her face in the wolf’s ruff with a low, broken sound. “You don’t even want me.”

No one moves or speaks. Even Lucien sits completely silent for once.

Amara kneels beside them, her hands beginning to glow with healing magic. “Let me see what we’re dealing with,” she murmurs, extending her power over the injured animal.

Her expression shifts from concern to confusion to something like awe. “This is indeed Magnus’s wolf,” she says slowly. “Fenris. But this is...” She stops, her magical examination growing more intense.