Weregirl (22 page)

The dark night swallows us as I drag Sage down the back stairs of the house and into the alley, skirting a group of singing drunkards and finally crossing into the forest at the edge of town. Sage pants beside me as I allow him to pause, shivering in the cold night air.

“My backpack.” He looks back at the hostel and I realize Piers took us to the last place Sage had been. Damn him, why didn’t he just send us directly to California? I kick myself as we walk. Because he wasn’t with us. The last place I wanted to get lost was the black of the sorcery tunnel. To travel so far without him… we’d have been lost for sure. And, I’m certain, are lucky to have made it this far.

“We can’t go back.” I tug him further into the trees. “They’re hunting us. We need to keep moving.” Someone tries to find me using magic. I feel the traces of power as they tease along the edges of the shields Syd taught me to build. I reinforce them as the touch moves on, hoping I can continue to block our pursuers through magical means.

I’ll find out, I suppose.

Sage keeps close as I head south and east. We need warmer clothing, transportation. A way across the Atlantic. I can handle all these things, as long as Sage is with me, a plan unfolding in my mind while the two file folders sit snug against my chest.

I’ve lost the packs I carefully hid at the exit to the dungeons, but replacing the items therein will be simply a matter of liberating new ones. Sage I can’t replace.

“You have a plan, I take it.” He pauses, looks back at the lights from the edge of town shining through the trees, almost lost from sight. “Where are we going?”

To the one place I hope I can find answers. Maybe Syd and Max can catch up, though I don’t dare open to her until we’re far from home. I do my best to add a chipper tone to my voice, squeezing Sage’s hand as I lead him on.

“I hear California is nice this time of year.”

###

So now what?
Don’t you feel empty when you finish a book you LOVE?
Weregirl
might be over, but there are so many more great books ahead for you!
www.bit.ly/PattiLarsen
 

I happen to be super prolific (some claim I’ve sold my soul to a demon or have been cloned… I’ll leave it to you to decide). Think a book a month! So you only have to wait a very short time between sequels.

That being said, you can be the first in line for what’s coming next. Sign up here
www.bit.ly/pattilarsenemail
and fill up on fabulous fiction—while having access to some amazing contests, giveaways and more!
 

Now, get exploring my list! There are so many more worlds to dive into… including a number of money-saving bundles just for you!

Hayle Coven Omnibus #1:
The first three books of the HCN are featured in this bundle!
Family Magic
,
Witch Hunt
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Demon Child
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Blood and Gold Omnibus:
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Fire and Illusion
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tell the story of Auburdeen Hayle. She’s been sent to Victorian London to protect her from the political and powerful upheaval in her coven. But when a strange young man takes refuge in her hansom, Burdie’s sense of adventure leads her to more trouble than her worried parents could ever have bargained for.

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RUN
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Sixteen-year-old Reid thinks life is back to normal. His sister Lucy pulls herself together and cuts him free from a year of foster care. She promises to take care of him, that her new boss and her new life are what they both needed to start again. Until Reid is taken in the middle of the night, dumped in a wild stretch of forest far from home with no idea why he is there. Lost and afraid, he learns to run from the hunters who prowl the darkness, their only pleasure chasing down kids like him. And killing them.
 

Reid must learn to run, hide, fight and, finally, hunt if he wants to win his freedom.

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Happy reading!

***

Now, for the first chapter

of the next book in the Hayle Coven Universe

Lychos Cycle

 

Revenant

Sage stumbles over the threshold, torn carpeting coming loose from the metal strip holding it down the culprit. A faint odor rises to my sensitive nose with each step, memories of all the feet that have passed down this hall, to this room we’ve lied to rent.

He manages to right himself as I slip the door shut behind us. His sea-green eyes meet mine, lips trying to smile around a grimace of pain as my shoulder brushes his when I turn to support him. Damn it, the left side, where the bite festers under his jacket, the bite that’s led us here, to this run-down hotel in the heart of Kiev.

I ease him down on the creaking bed, trying not to think of what might be living under the thin sheets, the spotted comforter, in the heart of the mattress. Since when did a few bugs and a bit of dirt disgust me so? There were times I resided in moldering piles of straw for weeks at a stretch with stale water and no food to sustain me, coated in my own filth, nose burned out from the cutting odor of ammonia. Hunting rats and small insects was my only means of sustenance, and staying alive at all costs my animal-instinct.

How easily I’ve forgotten my humble and terrible beginnings. I’ve become soft as princess of the werenation, far-gone from the girl who would do anything to survive. I can’t afford to be weak, coddled, arrogant in my position and blind to the suffering who made me who I am. Not if I’m going to save Sage from certain death.

He doesn’t audibly complain of the pain he wears on his face, pulling me down beside him with his right hand, keeping me on his good side. His strong fingers lace through mine, a smile finally lifting the corners of his shapely lips.

“I always wanted to visit Kiev,” he says. “I just didn’t expect it to be like this.”

It’s so hard for me not to hug him, rock him like an injured child. I have to resist weakness now, in all forms. The girl I was cared for others, had friends to a point, as much as such things were allowed by the Black Soul sorcerers who owned my people. Before she was given away to the Dumonts and taught a whole new kind of life, where pain and degradation ruled and any rebellion was met with agony. She understands what I need to do, who I have to be if Sage is to survive. But I can’t quite bring myself to accept her, holding her at arm’s length within. It may mean our downfall. Still, I’ve come so far since she huddled in a cage like an animal, waiting for her next punishment, never breaking, not once.

I hope I can draw on what she has to offer, what my wolf has to offer, without reverting to the savage and hate-filled young thing I grew out of.

It might be harder than I think. We are on our own, hunted by the werenation thanks to Sage’s revenant status. I’ve thrown everything away to save him, to be with him. But I’m not alone this time, my cage is the whole world, and Sage is with me. My love is beside me. And I will not allow my choice to lead to failure, even if it means giving in to old hate to see him safe.

Magic that feels like Enforcers brushes the edges of the shields I maintain around us, my power protecting us, at least for now. But the longer we remain in Ukraine, the more likely it is we will be discovered. I imagine my dear friend, Sydlynn Hayle, is also searching, though her plans for Sage and I don’t involve putting him to death for being a revenant. I squeeze Sage’s hand as I reach for his jacket and push it back away from his left shoulder to examine the wound.

The skin is red, more than I’d like, infection likely as faint lines run outward from the bite. The teeth of his attacker bit deep, small chunks of skin flapped over two of the punctures, puffy and oozing clear fluid. The imprint is wide, as far across as my splayed hand, the bite of a werewolf, though Sage still swears it was a smaller version, a real wolf, not the half-transformed shape me and my people take when we shift. But it’s impossible a wolf bit him, not with the were infection spreading through his system. He must have seen one thing and his brain translated it into another out of a sheer lack of ability to process.

He hisses as I touch the edge of the bite, barely applying any kind of pressure. I lean back, grim, but doing my best not to let him see my worry. I’ll have to feed him antibiotics or find some other medicine to treat him. I can smell the taint of the revenant, but it’s faint, like a distant memory more than a current threat. Normal revenants—humans bitten by werewolves—have a stink about them that makes them flawed and oh-so-obvious to pure borns like me. I have my suspicions about the reason for the victim’s loss of humanity and madness, having to do with the lack of magic to support the wolf transferred in the bite. Being born a werewolf means having genes and power passed down from at least one parent. But when a normal is bitten, there is no such transfer, only the infectious illness that is the werewolf legacy.

But despite my worries about him, Sage doesn’t carry the heavy stench of the revenants I’ve dealt with in the past. Mind you, the first one I met was when I was only a little girl, but my nose never forgets a scent. The recent outbreak of revenants the European Witch Council has been tracking carry the same familiar odor, refreshing my nasal memory and making me hyper sensitive to it in Sage.

Which makes me think of Caine and his people. I know it was his wereform teeth that made the bite dooming Sage to this fate. I have no proof, but my heart knows the truth, the smirk of satisfaction he shared with me all the confession I need. Regardless, Cicero Caine and his pack from California are no born and bred werewolves themselves. I am also certain they are revenants, created by sorcerers, though whether it’s the renewed rise of the Brotherhood behind this, or some other sect I have yet to encounter, they have somehow managed to create werewolves where once only the Black Souls who made my people had that power.

“We need to keep moving.” Sage shifts restlessly beside me, my fingers releasing the edge of his jacket, hiding the wound. I need to, at the very least, acquire bandages so he doesn’t seep through his clothing. I don’t want normals to start noticing he’s not well and ask questions I don’t have time to make up lies for.

“You need rest,” I say, releasing his hand, rising to stand over him. “And I need to talk to someone.” There’s a reason we’re here, in Kiev, and not miles closer to the border by now. The werewolf palace, the center of our nation, lies north and east, almost on the Russian border. We have limited time, only seven days if the report Femke Svennson, the leader of the European High Council, can be believed. We’ve already lost one to his capture and my rescue of him, followed by our flight here. But we need resources and there is only one person I can think of who might supply them.