Ambrose stares at Aengus a moment and something in his expression shifts.

"Noah, go," he says, low and urgent. "Get the fuck out of here—get somewhere safe—go now!"

"I w-w-won't leave you!" I argue, hating that my stammer has chosen this moment to reappear, even as I begin to shake with adrenaline and mounting fear. "I w-won't run!"

Keeping one eye on the shadowy hound as it paces nearer, head lowered and blood-red eyes lit with a malevolent glow, I swallow hard and do my  best to sound fierce as I go on.

"If I'm y-your heart then he w-won't hurt me—he needs me as m-m-much as he needs you!"

"Twenty seconds," Aengus cuts in. "And you're only partly right, mongrel. I do need you. I just don't need you alive."

Ambrose hisses with anger, then startles me as he catches me by the upper arms and spins me around so my back is to the stairs, shielded from Aengus' view.

"Noah—listen. You're not running," he breathes. "You're going for help. You're no coward—I know that. You're my fierce, brave, beautiful—my lovely little wolf—and I need you to go. Please."

"Ambrose..."

"Go!!" he yells and shoves me with such force that I startle and stumble back until I'm barely balanced on the top stair, and I hear something like the authority of an alpha in his tone. A momentary war rages  in my heart between two conflicting urges: stay with my Mate and fight at his side, or obey my Mate and flee.

The decision is made for me when the creature growls again, and I glance its way.

Its shadow-smoke shape shifts constantly, and never quite settles on a distinct form; only its eyes and its long white teeth never change.

I shut my eyes briefly, but I can still hear it, and still smell the sulfurous tang of its decaying scent.

Maybe it isn't real. Maybe Aengus is just fucking with my head like some imitation Professor X. Then again, something knocked over the table and broke the vase, and something else tells me that—however talented he might be—Aengus Thorne is not that talented.

I open my eyes again and suddenly I'm convinced of three things: first, that—whatever it is—the creature is real; second, that it will kill me if it catches me; and finally, that I'm no good to Ambrose if I'm dead.

"NOAH!" he shouts again, and the anguish in his voice is unbearable. I meet his eyes, seeing in them the reflection of my own fear, and then I turn and run.

"Ten seconds," Aengus calls after me, sounding almost bored.

Leaping down the stairs, I sprint across the entrance hall, bolt through the front door and dash out into the yard. As I run, I can't help counting in my head.

Nine... Eight... Seven...

Reaching the gate, I don't stop to open it, instead vaulting over the low stone wall before darting across the street towards the thick woods on the other side.

Six... Five... Four...

I pause at the edge of the trees, momentarily struck with new indecision.

I  know I should look for Freya or Dane, or head towards town where there might be other people, or at least Shift to my wolf-form, so I can run and see better in the dark—

Three... Two...

Panic strikes me through the heart, and I plunge into the dense brush, cutting towards the trail that leads around the lake.

One.

Behind me, from back at the house, I hear a blood-chilling howl.

It's not the howl of a wolf, or a dog, or any animal I've ever heard before.

It's multi-toned, low and long, rising on the air and carrying a promise of death in its unnatural notes.

A demon's howl.

As if Thom wasn't bad enough, now this.

My breath comes quick and shallow, my heart racing fast and light as I sprint at full-tilt along the paved pathway beneath the bare branches of sleeping trees.

Above, the full moon lights the sky behind high tattered clouds that fly like torn rags across its face. The air that fills my nose and lungs carries the scent of this season of decay—of fungal blooms and lush moss, and of rotting wood and layers of fallen leaves, beneath which move the myriad small, creeping things that call the forest floor their home.

It's the sort of fine, mist-laced night that in other times, in better circumstances, I would have liked to turn Wolf and sprint over the open fields, hunt with my brothers and sisters up in the pine-clad mountain slopes, and serenade the moon from atop a bald, stone-capped hill: the delights of a Wolf in top form.

Tonight, though, as Ambrose noted earlier, I am not in top form.

It's nearly four in the morning. I've already been shot by my ex, saved by my Mate, scared half to death by his creepy undying 'father,' and now there's a demon after me. What more could go wrong?

This thought has barely crossed my mind when—of course—my bad luck catches up with me.

My glasses have fogged from my breath in the cold night air and, unable to see, I miss a bend in the path, hurtle over the edge and tumble down a steep embankment of slippery mud and soft, fallen leaves, fetching up hard against a tree. My ribs take the brunt of the impact, and I lie on my back a moment, breathless and stunned.

Above me, the bare, interlaced branches of the trees look like skeletal black fingers against the moonlit sky, and I struggle to fill my lungs with air against the pain seizing the muscles in my chest.

At last, I manage it and gulp down a few deep breaths of damp air while fighting the urge to cough. Not far off, I hear something moving through the brush, snapping twigs and crunching through the frost-stiffened leaves as it comes.

Gaining my feet, I back away, a thrill of fear tingling hot and cold over my skin.

I'm close to the edge of the lake now, my bare feet sinking a few inches into the oozing dark mud, the temperature barely above freezing, and find myself faced with a new dilemma—to run, or to hide, and which of these two terrors would be worse?

Would I rather be run down and taken like prey, or be hunted like a rabbit in a hole, my terror increasing moment by moment as my pursuer nears, step by step?

I wait a heartbeat too long, and just as I make my desperate choice—to break cover and flee along the shore—something moves beyond the screen of brush at the edge of the trees.

Something huge, black, shadowy, and not entirely corporeal.

It's about to emerge from the dense thicket and spot me, when I hear a quiet disturbance in the water at my back—a whisper and a splash—and then something thick and scaly whips around my chest, encircling me in tight coils, pinning my arms to my sides  and covering my mouth before pulling me backwards off my feet and into the lake.

Quick and quiet as a leaping fish, I'm pulled under with barely a ripple. Freezing water rushes over me and darkness closes round, and with my mouth covered, I can't even take a proper breath in my surprise.

The shock of cold water stings my flesh and makes my muscles seize, and I fight the urge to gasp as the coils holding me loosen briefly before tightening again.

As whatever has me holds me beneath the surface and drags me swiftly out into deeper water, my lungs begin to burn with the need for air, and I do my best to fight.

I struggle, twist, and thrash, but it's no use: I'm no match for the snakelike coils holding me fast.

My strength ebbs; my breath escapes like flashing silver fishes fleeing for the light. Stars and sparkles burst in my vision and a rushing sound fills my ears as I start to black out, drowning in the darkness beneath the unbroken surface of a still, winter lake.

I stop fighting, going still as my mind goes blank.  Then I begin to hallucinate, which some analytical corner of my mind tells me is just my brain dying from lack of oxygen, but which seems startlingly real.

Real, and oddly comforting.

The steel-strong coils become a pair of gentle arms embracing me, and warm lips cover mine and breathe soft air into my lungs. My body convulses again, but the arms hold firm, and it seems as if I hear a quiet voice, speaking in my mind.

Be still, friend. The danger is not yet passed. Be still.

I blink against the dark water as my mind clears a little, and realize that the burning in my lungs has lessened, and that they're filled with air.

Through my blurry vision, it seems I'm in the center of a swirl of black lake-grass, encircling me in a soft cocoon, while gentle hands hold the sides of my face and the warm lips press to mine again, feeding me air and life.

Knowing I can't fight, and with my fear having dissipated as swiftly as the bubbles of my breath, I surrender.

Some time later—I'm not sure how much—I feel myself pulled through the water again. I break the surface and emerge into the icy air, though it seems I barely feel the cold, and then I'm laid down in the layers of thick leaves a few yards from the shore.

Someone leans over me, and as my eyes strive to focus I make out a familiar face, dark brows pinched and long black hair falling in a curtain, woven through with lake weeds and streaming water. This was the black 'grass' that had enveloped me, I realize.

"Sh-Sh-Shan...ti," I whisper through lips I can't feel.

She touches the side of my face, her fingers feeling hot against my freezing skin.

"Yes." She nods. "I am sorry, Noah. The rakshasa had your scent.  I had to hide you."

"R-R-Rak—?" I can't finish the word, my body having begun to shake so violently I accidentally bite my tongue.

"Yes, rakshasas are a kind of...demon," she says distractedly, her pleasant accent a little more pronounced than I've heard so far. "Man-eaters,' they are sometimes called. They can take any shape, though usually they appear more human-like. I have not seen one such as this before. I think it may be acting against its will. It gave up more easily than I expected."

As she speaks, she smooths her hands up and down my arms and across my chest, evidently trying to warm me, though without much effect.

"Y-Y-You... You-re..."

"Shh—" She presses her warm fingers to my lips. "Yes, I am both what you think, and not what you think. I am a nagi, the daughter of a water-dragon king—the Nagaraja. But I did not come here to be a thief. I came here to stop one."

I feel her hand against my throat, and she frowns.

"You are hypothermic. We must get you warm. But I—"

She glances up abruptly, going still, then cups her long-nailed hands around her mouth.

"Here! He is here! I have him!" she calls.

The sound of something large crashing through the brush makes me gasp like a stranded fish with renewed fear, thinking that it's the rakshasa thing, or Aengus himself, maybe, but I can't move.

Shanti shushes me again, and I see the glint of scales on her upper body and arms, gleaming with silver iridescence in the light of the moon. Her lower body, I realize at the same time, is that of an enormous snake.

Then, two figures burst from the line of trees and rush forward, the larger falling at my side and catching me in strong arms, while the other throws a smelly old woolen blanket over me.

"Goddamn it, Noah," Dane gasps hoarsely, holding me to his broad chest as Freya looks on, literally biting her nails. "Why couldn't you have fallen in love with a vampire or a—a politician, or something? Why did it have to be a goddamned dragon with a shit-ton of family baggage, huh?"

"S-S-S-Sorry," I gasp, beginning to shiver with a violence that feels like it will shake my joints apart.

"No," Freya objects, kneeling in the mud and rubbing my hand between hers. "No, brother—Dane doesn't mean that." She glances up at him with a glare and a flash of amber in her eyes. "We love you, and we stand by whoever you call your Mate. Just... ask for some fucking help next time, okay? Isn't that what you're always telling me? That's what Pack is for."