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I blinked. No strings attached sounded too good to be true. And...I was taking it.
I nodded decisively. “Good. Great. I’m going to call Kale’s name and hope he snaps out of it. If he doesn’t, you tackle him then we’ll figure out how to get him back to your car.”
To his car. Not Lupe’s. If I could help it, I wasn’t riding with Ice Alpha ever again.
And even though she must have been his superior, Rune nodded. He didn’t argue, didn’t try to take over with his own game plan. Just slid out of the tree then curved off the path, skirting the spot where I could now see Kale hunkered down in a grassy opening up ahead.
The scene should have been pastoral. Kid in a sunbeam, light reflecting off pretty blue flowers scattered around him. But as I took the direct route to reach him as quickly as possible, Natalie’s son appeared smaller by the second. He wasn’t eying the floral bounty the way he usually would have. Instead, he’d sunk in on himself, his shoulders bowed and his chin on his chest.
Behind me, the rumble of a motorcycle stilled bird song. We wouldn’t have much time before Lupe and Ryder arrived. I needed to get Kale out of danger fast.
“Kale,” I murmured when I was still twenty feet out and Rune was an equal distance behind him. I didn’t expect a response, actually, given the fact Kale lacked wolf ears. I just needed to say his name, the relief of finding him whole coming out of me on the exhale.
But Kale did hear me and he wasn’t relieved by my presence. His head shot up, face tight with annoyance. “Go away.”
“Kale. Sweetie.” I took another step forward. “I’m really sorry about last night. I...”
My apology was cut off by two sounds. The revving of a motorcycle engine, twice as loud as previously and directly behind me. Then, from the opposite direction, the roar of wind so intense it sounded like a tornado about to touch down.
At the same time, something in my gut twinged. I swayed. Weakness flooded me.
“Tara!”
Rune’s voice broke whatever un-Alpha-like fear had gripped my muscles. He was sprinting toward Kale, wind already whipping his shirt into billows. Unsticking my feet with an effort, I raced forward, aiming for the exact same spot.
But Kale wasn’t there when we met in the middle. Instead, he’d been swept up by something invisible. Something he now rode, legs curled around wind as if it was a horse, the child’s torso tilted eerily forward.
He didn’t want our assistance. Instead, he appeared to be urging the invisible being on.
That urging was working. Kale was ten feet away by the time I realized what was happening. Ten feet then fifteen feet....
Twenty. Wind whipped against my face when I tried to follow. There was no way we’d catch up in human form.
I was lupine by the time my forepaws hit the ground. Clothes sloughed off me except for the shirt that tangled around my throat as I sprinted forward. I would have gone down if Rune’s hands hadn’t severed the fabric as easily as if it was a floral lei draped around my neck.
He didn’t shift though. Instead, he sprinted two-legged.
But two legs were no match for the speed of a wolf.
Rune falling behind was disappointing, but I had to focus forward. On the treeline the wind was rushing toward. On the way our enemy was starting to pull Kale higher off the ground....
The wind now turned into the tornado its sound originally resembled. Curving around the edge of the clearing, it spiraled upward. If I veered left immediately, I might be able to intercept during its next pass...but by that time Kale would be too high to capture. Out of my reach.
I barked, or tried to. The warning choked back down my throat until I huffed out every ounce of air I had in me. The second try, though, was loud enough to overcome the wind, and Kale knew the sound of this warning. Knew it from the days I’d let him attend pack hunts. It was a warning. A stop immediately.
Back then, Kale had obeyed without hesitation. Now, if he heard, he wasn’t interested. Instead, the child laughed, or so it seemed from his rounded cheeks and squinting eyes.
The wind appeared to be laughing also. It shimmered around the edges, whipping up fallen leaves and cracking tree limbs as it whirled past them. Each time, it travelled just a little higher....
I was losing Kale. And with Rune so distant his scent was lost to the roar of the wind, I had to admit I was in this alone.
Okay, yes, there was one other option. The motorcycle, its growl audible enough to suggest it had reached the clearing. Maybe the vehicle would be faster than I was on wolf feet....
But I couldn’t trust Lupe to put Kale’s best interests before her duties. So I stopped. Dug my claws into the soil. Called for the Guardian with all of my might.
Nothing answered. Our fae ally was done with me, for today at least. Which likely meant the unicorn was also.
Only, when I squeezed my eyes shut and begged for his assistance, hot air whuffled against the back of my neck.
“Oh hell no,” Rune growled from behind me as I opened my lupine eyes.
***
RUNE MUST HAVE SPRINTED flat out to catch up, which was sweet. But I didn’t have time to deal with his unicorn aversion. Not when Kale was already ten feet off the ground.
So I leapt onto the unicorn’s back, shifting midair and ending up flat on my human stomach. “We have to catch Kale,” I huffed with what little breath I had left.
I was risking being bucked off for failing to compliment my steed’s appearance. Wasn’t following our usual protocol of flattery paid in advance.
But, to my relief, the unicorn’s haunches bunched beneath me. Then we were running flat out.
Or rather, the unicorn was running and I was falling. I lunged for a hank of mane, barely managing to regain my balance. Fought to keep my eyes open as we picked up speed.
I couldn’t let myself lose sight of Kale. He was a child under my protection. And, more than that, he and his mother were among my few true friends....
Now it was the time for me to return that friendship. I grabbed the unicorn’s mane as he sped up faster than I’d been able to run either as wolf or human. Then I worked my way to standing, balanced atop my magical steed’s back.
Sooner than seemed possible, we were abreast with our quarry. Kale’s knees were at my eye level. He cocked his head and peered down at me, his lips curling back as if he were a snarling wolf.
So, yeah, not entirely friendly at the moment. But we’d get back there. We had to.
Would get back there as long as I didn’t let Kale slip through my fingers. To that end, I released the unicorn’s mane and leaned in Kale’s direction. Fingers outstretched, I swiped....
The wind retaliated. Slapped at my face, buffeting the unicorn sideways. I had to drop to a crouch if I didn’t want to end up plummeting all the way to the ground.
Meanwhile—“Go away, go away! I hate you!” Kale cried, his voice rising and twirling in and out of the wind.
This wasn’t working. The unicorn—who had never seemed to strain when bringing me to meet the Guardian—was sweating so hard my knee slipped on wet hair. As I caught myself, specks of white foam spun away from his mouth and slapped against my skin.
Lungs heaved between my knees. The unicorn couldn’t continue much longer.
But we’d slowed the wind just a little. Slowed it and lowered it enough for the Samhain Shifters to catch up.
Ryder and Lupe were the first to arrive. He steered the motorcycle while she stood half over his shoulders while looking out behind him. It didn’t seem like a useful arrangement until he skidded and her sword lashed out at—
“Kale!” I screamed.
The sharpened steel sliced through nothing one millimeter away from my favorite twelve-year-old. But he didn’t flinch. Instead, he reached toward it, as if grabbing onto a sharp blade was an excellent idea.
Then Rune was there, leaping up to separate the blade and the child. Metal streaked through skin and fabric. The tang of iron filled the air.
The sword had only skimmed the surface of Rune’s skin, but my throat throbbed so hard I couldn’t speak. Not that speaking would have helped anyway. Instead, I got my feet back under me then I leapt.
Off the unicorn’s back and into Kale. We tumbled through the air together, first falling then rising. Behind me, I heard Lupe grunt and Ryder swear.
Whatever they were up to, it must have been keeping the wind busy. Because even though Kale and I didn’t strike the ground, the wind didn’t draw Kale back into its center either.
Instead, we spun together, rotating in an absent eddy that seemed just enough aware not to drop us. First we faced the trees, then we turned further to see all three of the Samhain Shifters battling nothing. Rune swiped with a sword that moved so fast I could barely make out the movement. Lupe was using what looked like a shimmery lasso. And Ryder was driving one-handed, his other hand repeatedly reaching into saddlebags then tossing glittering knives.
Neither lasso nor blades were having an effect. The wind, though, was making its displeasure known. It fixated on Lupe, first whipping her hair into a noose then, apparently, squeezing with nothing but air....
Her face mottled purple. I didn’t know how long she could continue fighting without oxygen, but the end had to come soon.
Meanwhile, I was stuck in this eddy that seemed content to turn me and Kale like chickens on a spit. I did, however, have one tool still at my disposal.
“Get over here!” I yelled at the unicorn.
The vain thing stamped his hoof in answer. He’d retreated out of the maelstrom, had found a sunbeam to preen beneath, and didn’t seem inclined to leave it.
“You’re unbelievably charming,” I called. But my words refused to sweeten.
Because the unicorn wasn’t being charming at the moment. Charming would consist of saving Kale without having to be bribed into it. Charming would be standing and fighting like the Samhain Shifters were doing.
No wonder the lie lay between us, heavy as an anchor. The unicorn turned to show me its rump.
Well, if compliments weren’t going to cut it, I’d have to dig deeper. And I knew, from lessons with my father, what it took to get the fae’s attention.
I could only hope this unicorn was fae enough to be tempted. It certainly wasn’t of this world....
Refusing to let doubts surface, I opened my mouth and made a binding vow. “I owe you a boon,” I called to the unicorn, “if you save Lupe, Ryder, and Rune and get me and Kale out of here.”
It was a tall order. One unicorn against the animated wind.
“Assuming,” I added, my voice raised to carry across the air whipping me in circles, “you’re capable.”
The dig at the unicorn’s masculine ego did it. He whinnied, a high-pitched shriek that cut through the wind for one split second. I heard the gasp of Lupe’s inhale even as hot unicorn back slid underneath me.
Then I was once again clinging to a mane, my free arm looped around a boy who had started struggling. “Hang tight,” I told him, or myself. “Just hang tight for one more second....”
Because that’s all it would take to cross over. Surely the wind wouldn’t be able to follow....
One instant before the unicorn shot us out of the human world and into another, a hand clamped down around my knee.