Verity

I half expected us to have to swim out to a ship where we would encounter Flora's mom tied to a mast, while a crew of Aurum Venari pirates drew swords on us as we attempted to board the vessel.

"Really selling the treasure hunt them, aren't they?" I'd say to Alek, who'd toss off his jacket to reveal a peasant shirt underneath a tight leather vest, a sword appearing in his hand out of nowhere. I'd admire his form as he leapt onto the deck, striking down our enemies, swashbuckling his way to a final showdown with Norvin himself.

There was no boat, however. No eyepatches or scurvy-ridden crew with homemade tattoos and missing teeth. We drove down a road hugging the coast and then turned onto another, cutting inland a bit. A few minutes later, Alek slammed on the breaks. I jostled forward and then back again, hitting my head against the headrest. Flora swore from the back seat.

Our headlights shown onto a concrete road barrier. On it, an off-center sign read "DO NOT ENTER."

Alek put his car in park and cut the engine, then studied his phone. "I guess we're supposed to go the rest of the way on foot."

"That sign doesn't look like we're supposed to go in that direction, on foot or any other way," Flora said.

"We have to go where our coordinates lead us." I opened my car door and climbed out. "Just pretend you're Geocaching, Flora."

"This isn't for fun, though," she said as she joined me to stare at the barrier and the narrow road behind it. Without the headlights to illuminate our path, the road disappeared into a void. "It feels... ominous."

"It is ominous. That's the point." Alek walked towards us with a flashlight in one hand, his phone in the other. "Remember." He shone a beam of light at my feet. "You wanted to get here and get this over, right?"

"I'm not the one putting up a fight, but..." I peered into the darkness, imagining an ambush waiting for us as soon as we proceeded, then recalled the words written on the backside of the message we'd found back at the state park: the moon doesn't care if a dog barks at it.

Reading that expression had pulled a memory up from the dim recesses of my mind. My mom at the kitchen table, weeks, maybe even merely days before she'd died. Me, crying to her because the neighbor boy kept saying mean things to me. She'd told me about the moon's indifference to a yapping dog. Seeing my confused face, she'd elaborated.

"You're the moon, Verity. You're so far above him, you can't even hear what he's saying. He just likes the sound of his own voice."

I swallowed that memory, and pushed back the confusion—why that proverb? Did it relate to my mother? If so, how? Those questions would have to wait for another time, however, like maybe when we weren't facing our impending doom.

"Let me call out my wolf before we go any further," I said.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asked me.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

Pursing his lips, he stared at me silently before shaking his head. "It's your body. Or...bodies, I guess. You know best."

Damn right I do, I called to him in my mind, but if he heard me, he made no response.

A minute later, three humans and a wolf walked beyond the barrier, down a gloomy and uncertain path.

I used all my heightened senses, hoping they would give us enough of an edge to avoid calamity. My wolf ears listened for signs of life around us. We passed into an area where coastal live oak trees lined the path, large enough to imagine someone hiding amongst their branching trunks. The air stank with the musty aroma of my anxious human companions.

Flora mumbled under her breath, "please be all right," and I wondered if she was referring to her mother or to herself.

We continued, but it felt like we made no progress. The moonless night disorientated me. Light from Alek's flashlight and our phones helped little to cut through the darkness. Even my wolf vision had its limits. I came to a standstill, both me and my wolf self, sniffing the air beyond our line of sight.

A whiff of rot raised my hackles. I bared my fangs and growled. Everyone stopped. Flora stared with wide eyes at me, a huge wolf in an attack stance. Alek ignored everything except his phone.

"We're here," he said, kicking at the dusty road like he might bully it into answering why Norvin had picked this spot. "What the hell?"

What the hell, indeed.

"Werewolves," I whispered to him. "Chip, and at least four others. Maybe more than that. They're almost here."

He nodded. As nervous as he must have been, he was keeping his shit together. "Flora, stay close to us. Backs together so we all face a different direction. Remember, they want us alive."

"Are we sure about that?" Flora's voice cracked. She moved in close. "Shouldn't we at least try to escape?"

"Can you run faster than a wolf?" I asked her. I placed a trembling hand on top of her arm. "It'll be okay."

The werewolves closed in. I growled again, circling the humans. We were outnumbered, facing an enemy we could not see, and uncertain what would happen next.

"Get ready," I said.

A howl rang out.

My wolf self turned to face the first of them.

Chip.

His snarling muzzle appeared out of the darkness as Alek's flashlight illuminated it.

"Verity, get back!" he said, his arm jutting out in front of my human body, but it was my wolf that he was focused on.

There was no time for retreat. Chip lunged. I screamed and yelped from both of my voices as his teeth dug into the flesh of my neck.

"Oh my God, Verity!" Pulling off her silk scarf, Flora pressed it against the bite that had formed on my hairless human neck. "Alek, do something. He's going to kill her!"

She's wrong. I'm not going to kill you. I would never! Chip's voice echoed through my consciousness. You're still my mate Verity, even if you aren't... quite right.

I'm the one who's not quite right? The nerve of that idiot.

Alek tossed his phone to the ground, freeing up a hand to unholster his gun.

"Not that!" I scream at him. Warm liquid coated Flora's scarf and dripped down my chest. It made me woozy, but I was still coherent enough to know Alek with a gun was a bad idea. "If you shoot the wrong wolf, I'm toast."

My wolf struggled underneath Chip's weight. He unclamped his jaw from my neck as if that proved he, a werewolf, was perfectly sane.

Alek stepped forward to either kick at Chip or get a chance at a better shot. This time it was me who placed an arm in front of him to prevent him from moving. "They're all here now."

The rest of Chip's pack, six werewolves, emerged from the darkness. As if we weren't screwed already...

"I'm sorry," I said to Flora, then turn to Alek. This might be the end of all three of us. "To you too."

Alek frowned. A jolt of emotion rolled through me and there was no mistaking who it came from. "You're sorry? Verity—"

It was all too much for me now. The blood loss, the world in shadows, Alek's despair raining down on me. As I swayed, I felt another pain, this time a prick on the opposite side of my neck from where Chip had bitten me. I looked to my wolf, but Chip had already backed away.

"The fuck is happening?" Flora said before collapsing next to me.

"Flora!" I screamed, wanting to reach a hand out to her, but the world continued to spin while I stood still, willing myself not to vomit.

"Humans." Alek turned around several times, trying to assess what was happening. He took a shot into the trees. "Aurum Venari hunters. They have darts."

That's what happened then: I'd been shot with a dart and was about to faint. Or was my wolf the one who was shot, and I was feeling the effects. I tried to bring an arm up to my neck, but my limbs refused to move when I commanded them to.

Using the last of my resolve, I attempted to collect my wolf back into my head only to find that my mind had become like my limbs. Nothing worked the way it was supposed to, except gravity.

Gravity worked perfectly.

I dropped to the earth. As everything shut off—my body, my brain—Alek's voice cut through the oblivion. It was his words that I carried into the darkness. His words that battled with unconsciousness. His words that, if I ever woke up from this, would be the first thing I'd think of.

"This wasn't part of the plan, Assholes!"

____

Author's Note: I hope reading this chapter was as intense an experience as writing it was! 

Did Verity collect her wolf or have they been separated? Why did Alek say that at the end of the chapter? Is he a traitor? 

We'll find out the answers to these questions, and so much more in the coming chapters!

XOXOXO