She’s going to gut me alive, I distantly realized.
I rammed my arms upward, trying to throw her off. The sensation of ice water trickled over my skin, and a jolt of energy shot out of my palm, blasting into the woman’s shoulder. She flew several feet and let out a blood-curdling scream. But in a split second, she had clambered back toward me. “You’re going to die.”
“Eat me!” I shouted as I raised my palm and tried to release my magic again. Nothing came, and I immediately regretted my choice of words.
In a blur of motion, the she-wolf pounced on me. She pinned my legs and gripped my neck, her claws pricking my skin. With her bloody hand, she grasped my hair and slammed my head against the boulder.
My vision swam with stars. I tried to scream, but only a gurgle came out.
She pulled my head back again, but before she could crush my skull, she hesitated for a split second as a blur appeared in the corner of my darkening vision. The woman screamed, and blood splattered across my face as a massive gray wolf sank its jaws into her neck and dragged her off of me.
Jaxson.
He threw the she-wolf’s body through the air like a rag doll, and she crashed into the ravine’s embankment. Leaping onto her, he gently clamped her throat, pinning her in place, one paw on her chest. Even I could read the wolf language here: Submit.
The woman locked me with her maniac eyes. “He’s coming for you.”
Then she jerked her head under Jaxson’s teeth, tearing out her own throat. Bright red blood seeped into the mossy ground.
I screamed as the nightmare unfolded. Panic whirling in my mind, I scrambled back against the opposite side of the ravine, anything to get away from what I’d just seen and heard.
What did she even mean? Who was coming for me? The faceless man?
Oh, my God.
Jaxson’s body rippled, and he growled deep and low. He approached and lowered his face to mine. His honey eyes blazed, and a deep ache grew inside me. Pain stretched across my breast, and I could barely breathe.
What was happening to me?
A howl sounded through the forest, and the wolf’s ears perked. He turned and took off up the side of the ravine.
I let my heart recover and then pulled myself to my feet. My muscles were tired and strained, but I managed to climb the steep sides of the embankment, yanking myself up one root at a time.
A few minutes later, Jaxson appeared, bare chested but wearing pants. My breath hitched. He was like Ares, god of war, with his blood-splattered muscles tensed and his shoulders heaving. Protectiveness and concern darkened his face. When he stepped toward me, my chest tightened and my skin burned as he scanned my body for injuries. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Physically? Or mentally? Because I was feeling messed up, either way.
“Fine,” I whispered, grasping for lies. “Why would she kill herself?”
Jaxson was quiet, which I took to mean either he didn’t know or shit was dire. I was betting on the latter.
“How many demons were there?” I asked.
His eyes still had a honey tint to them. “Four. All dead.”
I concentrated on breathing in and out. My mind was still having a hard time wrapping itself around what I’d just witnessed.
Another howl sounded through the trees, and Jaxson froze. “Follow me. We need to go.”
He took off into the trees in a blur. Hell, what now?
35
Savannah
I broke into a run after him, grimacing at my sore muscles and scratched arms. It was a short distance to the cabin, but when I arrived, I didn’t see Jaxson or the others.
The hairs on my neck prickled, and my heart thundered.