Into Their Woods (The Eerie, #1)(125)

Murderer.

Hitting my limit, I give up on trying to stall him anymore and go with plan B.

Time to fight and try to run.

Rage radiates off me as I call on my wolf. I open myself completely to our connection, inviting her to take over and give this fucker a taste of his own medicine. I wait for her strength and raw power to fill me…but it doesn’t come.

I take a deep breath, recalling everything Perth taught me out in the clearing, and try again.

Nothing.

I close my eyes, begging for my magic to surge forward and protect me, but there’s a wall separating me from it.

My lids snap open and Dillon is smirking at me. His eyes trail behind me, and I follow them to a red crystal that’s sitting in the window frame. I look around and spot several red crystals positioned all around me, and then I look back to the bastard who put them there and notice that he’s standing outside of their circumference.

Without thinking, I take a step back, aiming for the crystal behind me.

“Ah ah ah,” Dillon tuts, pulling something else from out of his pocket with his bloody hand. I can’t tell what it is, but the implied threat is clear.

I breathe through my panic, once again surveying the crystals keeping me from my wolf. I won’t be able to shift as long as I’m standing at their center, and if I try to destroy them, he’s going to stop me.

But…

Without second guessing my instincts, without even looking in the direction I want to go, I leap. I spring with every ounce of rage and fury in my body, tense with anticipation for the second I’m free of the crystals and their effect.

Magic and my wolf surge through me as I soar past the magical barrier, and I beg my beast to take over.

Something big and hard crashes into me, and I go careening into one of the kitchen islands. The edge of the counter cracks and breaks off from the impact, and pain flares through me. My shift stalls with the shock of agony, but I reach deeper for my wolf and she answers.

Hope explodes in my chest when I see the black lines crawling up my arms.

But then a massive gray wolf is in my face, fangs bared, a terrifying growl pouring from between his canines.

It happens so fast I can’t do anything to stop it. Teeth sink into my arm, clamping down viciously as they pierce me. Something in my soul—in the core of who I am—shatters.

I scream at the loss, and fire ignites under my skin as something new, something unwelcome fills the void in my chest.

“There you are,” Dillon boasts in my head, his voice slimy, wrong…unwanted. “Now you’re ours, just like you always should have been.”

Agony swells in my veins.

Pain tortures me with its touch.

Anguish mocks my loss.

And then everything goes black.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


Special thanks to RK and Sarah for beta reading this beast and helping us add wings so it can fly. Thanks to Helayna for helping us cross our ts and mind our qs and for making hilarious observations along the way. Thanks a ton to Danielle at Design by Definition for the amazing cover.





ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ivy is one badass mofo who somehow tolerates Ann’s weird jokes. Ann is brilliance personified who graciously doesn’t judge Ivy’s bossiness or overall disarray. With a friendaversary that goes back to pre-publishing days, these bitches like to write dark and sexy stuff and laugh with each other over their horrible, eye-gougingly bad stick figure drawings as they try to map out scenes.

This is their first book together but they both have a shit-ton of other books for you to check out.