Chapter 69 70
They did. They turned like obedient schoolboys, sniffing the air like guilty puppies. Their posture had shifted from aggressive to very embarrassed on a Sunday. I gave them a little curtsey for effect. “Thank you. Cover your eyes. It’s only polite.”
Once they were facing the trees, I took a deep breath. I will be explicit about one thing here: if you are going to shift into a wolf and maim people, proper technique is to be in a comfortable, aerodynamic state. Also, clothes cling when wet and that is uncomfortable. Practicalities, people. And the truth was I don't have spare clothes. And I'm not stupid to ruin what Gregor left for me.
I muttered something that might have been a prayer to the Moon Goddess or to the ghost of common sense, and the world slammed into speed.
Muscles tore and reshaped—painful and glorious—and in less than the time it takes to regret a bad tattoo choice, I had fur and claws and a hunger that smelled like ruthless justice. The scent of metal and fear and the two blush-faced cowards who had thought they could curb stomp a half-starved, mud-splattered woman was suddenly very, very close.
They were still turned away.
Bad move.
Wolf-Marigold launched.
The first man spun as if the trees themselves had punched him. He barely got a sound out before I knocked him off his feet. I didn’t savor it. There was no time for soap-opera heroics. I pinned, hissed, snapped, and the fight was over too fast for it to be pretty. He hit the leaves with a thud. He didn’t get up.
The second stumbled—maybe trying to find his gun, maybe trying to find a backup plan that didn’t involve an awkward blush—and that gave me the gap I needed. I closed the distance and moved so fast his brain did not register beyond immediate panic. His eyes got huge—like saucers. That was probably the best look of the morning.
He went down before he even realized he had a problem. Not pretty, not cinematic; efficient and finite. He didn’t get up.
I sat back on my haunches, breathing, smelling the dampness and the sharp tang of blood and the faintly offended scent of mustache cologne. My wolf licked her paws regally as if we hadn’t just committed forest-side capital punishment. I blinked and—slowly—shifted back.
There I was: human, naked, but feral around the edges, hair wild, mud streaked across my cheeks, and possibly bits of leaf in my hair. My shirt and jacket were folded neatly where I’d tossed them. My boots were miraculously intact. The mustache was not. The men were not. Some things were just factual and you had to move on.
The absurd part? Those idiots had managed to faintly look scandalized and terrified as they slid from being smugly menacing to suddenly dead. Like they’d graded themselves out of villainy and into irreversible regret.
I dusted my hands off on my jeans because politeness is a habit I refuse to lose, even when my life is a walking crime scene. Then I looked down at the pendant that sat like a tiny accusation against my chest—the wolf tooth Gregor had left—and ran my thumb over its carved edge until it warmed.
“Sorry, not sorry,” I said out loud to the unconscious men. “You should not have been here. You should definitely not have blushed at me. That’s on you.” I hoisted my jacket back onto my shoulders with as much dignity as mud and casualty allow.
Sass is a survival skill and also a coping mechanism, but even as I jabbed at the air with my tongue like a fool, something cold and sharp settled over me: the forest had ears, and the Black Fang would notice the lack of two scouts. That had consequences. Probably loud ones, with teeth. Still—small victories count.
I wiped a smear of dried blood from my arm, making a show of being practically fastidious about it. “Note to self,” I said. “Don’t invite scouts to stare competitions.” Then, because I am a romantic at heart and also a terrible planner, I whispered into the trees like a witch swearing an oath, “You give me Gregor and I’ll try not to murder all your men, okay?”
The trees did not answer, because they’re trees, and that’s mostly rude. But the pendant warmed under my fingers. Gregor had been close enough to know I would need clothes, chocolate, and biscuits. He had been close enough to tease me. Close enough to make a path. Close enough that I could still smell him like a promise.
I slapped the empty wrappers into one of the scout’s hands like a bizarre, bloody thank-you, slapped his face a little and started walking again, boots pounding the soft earth. My wolf padded behind my heels, patient and furious. My heart pounded in the chest like a war drum, and I felt oddly, ridiculously alive.
“Next time,” I said to no one and everyone, “I’m bringing a proper outfit. And maybe some sunglasses for the scouts.”
Then I set my face toward where the cliffs cut the skyline, toward the place where Gregor waited—or bled, or fought, or cursed the Queen—in whatever state he was in. The forest closed behind me, and somewhere, very far away, a Black Fang war-howl echoed, furious and surprised. I grinned like a traitor to propriety, because honestly? I could smell the rest of their fear from here.
A few hours later.
Okay. Let me just start by saying: if someone told me this morning that I’d be running for my life through a cursed forest, fighting blushing werewolf scouts while half-naked, and then stumbling upon a glitter-coated Barbie dream cottage for fairies—I would’ve told them to lay off the shroom tea.
But alas, here I was.
The forest around me looked like someone spilled an entire bag of rainbow Skittles over it. Flowers in every possible color were blooming out of moss, glowing mushrooms winked like nightlights, and magical fireflies were performing synchronized dance routines like they were auditioning for America’s Got Wings.
And then—just when I thought I was hallucinating from exhaustion—I saw it.
A tiny clay cottage.
No, not tiny like minimalist cottagecore influencer tiny. Tiny like… toddler’s Lego house tiny. It had a roof that looked like someone sculpted it out of old cookie dough, and beside it was a wooden door smaller than my boot. A ladder no thicker than my thumb led up the trunk of a massive oak tree, which sparkled faintly, like it had its own Instagram filter.
I stopped dead, hands on my hips, huffing. “Okay. Either I’ve officially gone insane or I just found a fairy Airbnb.”
Then came the voice.
“Who do we have here?”
Now, you’d think a voice that small wouldn’t startle me. Wrong. My werewolf hearing magnified it to the volume of pinch-fart in a megaphone in a church. I literally jumped.
“Holy fart!” I clutched my chest like an old lady with heartburn.
And then I saw her.