Page 15 of The Huntress and the Blood Moon (The Huntress #1)

T he blade sinks into Renfus’s chest with a sickening crack.

His eyes go wide, still trained on Carmen.

When he finally manages to peer down at himself, he groans out a low, Fuck , before his body collapses to the ground, as if nothing more than a sack of meat.

It’s enough to distract the three guards who all turn back to their leader, wide-eyed in disbelief, their pursuit of Carmen thwarted by the deadly blow they’ve just allowed through the promise of their protection.

The rest of the room will likely have their heads for it.

And then they’ll kill each other fighting to take over the seat.

“Oh my god!” someone shrieks from the center of the room.

Carmen hastens to free one shoulder from the strap of her bag, slinging it to hang from her front. She unzips the main pocket and reaches in for the first grenade, fingers gripping tight around the glass bottle. She digs into her pants pocket with her other hand, searching for her lighter.

Within the span of a single breath, she’s got the first bomb lit.

Flames lick and stretch along the length of the wick much quicker than Carmen anticipated.

She hurls the bottle toward the group of guards who have started running toward her, and it hits the one in the center in the face, exploding on impact.

She quickly lights a second one, aiming for the bully seated in the crowd.

She’d meant to kill him first, but this will have to do.

The bomb explodes, taking a quarter of the crowd down with him.

It’s the distraction she needs to turn around and push through the door and sprint back out into the hallway, just as some of the wolves start to scream.

Fire doesn’t have the same lethal effects as silver, but it’s a natural purifier.

Its cleansing properties can work just as well against wolves if you know how to wield it right , Warren told her and Lacie once before teaching them how to make homemade bombs.

Light ‘em up with enough umph , and you’ll take ‘em down.

She’s made it almost to the end of the hallway by the time she hears the heavy door click shut behind her. But then it crashes open again as a number of wolves chase after her. From the sounds of their footsteps, they’re still in their human forms.

She knows from experience it takes a solid minute for werewolves to fully transition from human to wolf form—time that those chasing her now likely didn’t want to spend with the risk of her getting away.

But they aren’t as fast on human feet as they’d be in wolf form.

Carmen might actually have a chance in hell at pulling this off.

She sprints with everything she has, following the path she took in reverse, back to the girl still chained to the ground like an animal.

Pulling a bobby pin out of her hair after stuffing her lighter back in her pocket, she readies herself to lean on a trusted old orphan trick: picking the lock to set the girl free.

She definitely didn’t get the chance to steal the keys off the male who holds them before sending him to hell.

With less than a minute lead on the pack, every second counts. Barreling around the corner and into the makeshift chamber, she dives onto the floor next to the girl and immediately begins working to unfasten the lock.

“What happened?” the girl asks. Terror fills her face as the sound of running footsteps draws in from down the hall.

Carmen ignores her, concentrating on the pin pinched between her fingertips. She feels it gently glide deeper into the mechanism and twists her wrist. The lock clicks open.

“Oh my god,” the girl cries out, scrambling to her feet. The dress she wears is ripped and tattered, hanging on to her curvy frame by mere threads. Her short hair is a tangled mess.

Carmen barely spares her a glance, already moving for the canisters of the firestarter she left behind. “If you don’t want to burn where you stand, I suggest you run,” she says through clenched teeth. There are only seconds until those wolves reach this room, only seconds for the girl to get out.

She just stares at Carmen, wide-eyed with fear.

“Run, dammit!” Carmen shouts.

But it’s too late. A female with long black hair launches out from the shadows and into the room.

She’s still in her human form, hair sweeping through the air behind her as she moves.

But her unnatural smile is wicked, her fangs that of a pure monster.

She sets her sights on the girl, reaching out to grab her by the neck.

Carmen sends a blade flying, watching as it embeds right into the female’s temple.

She squeals, a mask of pain covering her face as dark red blood cascades down her cheek.

She falls to the ground with a quiet thud just as two males come flying in behind her.

Carmen’s already poised to strike, sending two more blades right for them.

The first hits the male on the left in the neck, the second hits the other in the eye.

The girl screams, crouching low to the ground and covering her face with her hands. The dress stretches around her thighs, fabric ripping even more. “Please!” she shouts. “Please get me out of here!”

Carmen’s heart twists. She fists a canister of accelerant in one hand and a new knife from her waistband in the other, moving to stand in front of the girl and waiting for more wolves to come.

But they don’t.

She heaves out a breath. And then another.

What’s left of the pack must have already started fighting each other to claim the Alpha seat—it’s the only thing that makes sense, the only reason there aren’t a dozen werewolves descending on both of them right now. “Stay behind me,” Carmen says quietly as she opens the cap on the canister.

“Okay,” the girl replies, her voice small.

Carmen slowly moves back into the hallway, stepping over the bodies of fallen werewolves.

When they both clear the open corridor, Carmen whispers a soft, “Stay here.” She doesn’t wait for the girl to respond.

Instead, she inches forward down the hallway, back toward where the pack was congregated.

She keeps the blade held high, ready to throw it if anyone comes into view.

As she moves, she tilts the canister forward just enough to let the liquid inside begin to pour out.

It makes a light slapping noise against the old linoleum floor beneath her feet.

She keeps her eyes trained forward, listening to the distant clanks and bangs that likely confirm the pack is fighting themselves.

Carmen could almost smile at the absurdity, at the demise those monstrous idiots are letting take root thanks to their own egotistical need for power.

She makes it down the length of the same corridor she’d just been escaping across minutes ago, a flammable trail of accelerant marking her path. And then she hears it: the crash of that door.

Fuck , she thinks.

Turning back around, she locks eyes with the girl.

In the dim light of the wall sconce above her head, she can see the deep red of her hair, the scratches along her pale cheek.

Her eyes are so big, so rounded with fear, it stirs something deep within Carmen’s belly: a need to protect her, to save her.

To take this opportunity to do what she couldn’t do before.

She drops the canister on the ground, the bottom cracking from impact, spilling more liquid out onto the floor.

And then she’s running, pulling the lighter back out of her pocket.

“RUN!” she shouts to the girl, just as the sound of claws scraping against the ground fills the space behind her.

The girl turns, giving her bruised and bloodied back to Carmen.

She launches herself into a sprint toward the front of the building, to the door that leads out into the woods.

Carmen sucks down a deep breath, the thrill of the chase settling into her bones as the wolves behind her get closer and closer.

As soon as that girl makes it out into the safety of the open night air, Carmen will drop a flame onto the ground and light these fuckers up like fireworks.

The girl makes it around a corner, the front entrance now in view, and Carmen’s heart leaps.

She just might pull this off. Pain slices across her back and she grunts.

She turns the blade she still carries around in her palm—it’s her favorite knife, the first one Warren gave her after he and Lacie took her in—and shoves it backward through the air, swinging her arm wildly until she makes impact with something.

A wolf yelps. Carmen doesn’t risk looking back, eyes trained on the girl ahead, watching her legs pump as she sprints toward that door. She’s so close . . . so close . . .

She’s hit against the side of her head with enough force to send her flying into the wall, her head and shoulder slamming right through the drywall. Bone cracks, and Carmen cries out from the searing pain of it.

Forcing herself to stay upright, she peers over her shoulder to find a wolf so large it stands nearly as tall as her, even rooted on all four feet.

Its fur is a coarse, mottled gray with a white patch spreading out from the front of its chest. Two yellow eyes narrow on her as it lets out a low, angry snarl.

Another group of wolves are stalking toward them from a few feet behind.

Carmen launches forward, burying her knife deep into the wolf’s chest. Warm blood spurts down her hand and wrist, painting the white fur around her grip a deep, dark red.

She pulls back, releasing her grip on the hilt, and yanks her back off her shoulder to pull the last grenade from within.

She lights the wick with a flick of the lighter, the flicker of flame shining over her wet, bloody hand as it erupts along the cotton material.

Carmen doesn’t hesitate. She throws the bottle at the oncoming pack, their immediate yelps and screams a song in her heart as the bottle explodes.

She tears herself away from the wall and moves, hoping like hell the girl is already well outside of this building.

She has no doubt the small explosion was enough to reach the accelerant on the floor, enough to send licking flames all the way back to that leaking canister of fluid—a much bigger bomb than the bottles.

Carmen hustles forward until she can see the girl through the still-open door, washed in the light of the moon as she stands out beneath the thick cover of trees.

She looks so ethereal with her red hair and pale skin, anxiously watching for Carmen, shouting something across the distance that Carmen can’t quite hear.

Then two things simultaneously happen so fast, Carmen can hardly take either of them in.

First, the girl cries out a loud, guttural scream, just as her back arches unnaturally, and hair starts sprouting from her face.

And second, a werewolf sneaks up behind Carmen, utterly silent. He sinks his claws into her ribs and pulls her down to the ground.