Everything with us ended horribly, but in a lot of ways, Tara was the best thing that ever happened to me. She showed me how to be confident in my own body. Showed me that magic could bemine, that I could use it to bend the world around me, make it a little more inhabitable for a girl like me.
So it doesn’t matter if I’m just trying to get away from Felix, or if I’m running toward Tara somewhere in the woods, following the scent of ash and smoke drifting vaguely on the wind.
I let that fall away and just focus on the feeling of my paws along the ground.
Chapter 26 - Felix
Maeve isfast.
I breathe hard, shifting when I hit the tree line, just like she did. I have to catch up to her, stop her. Get her to listen to me.
More than that, she can’t be running through these woods alone.
It’s not safe for an omega—for anyone, really—to be running blindly. She could hit a valley she’s not aware of. Get stuck somewhere.
Or, a creature of the woods could call out to her. One of the strange figures we’ve seen dancing and twisting with the daemon fire. She could hear the haunting, echoing laughter among the trees and unwittingly follow it to her death.
As I run after her, my breath coming hard and fast, my paws pounding along the ground in a thundering, almost deafening staccato, I think about the stories of cryptids my father’s mother would tell me, growing up. Colorado cryptids, hiding amongst the forest. Tall, shadowy creatures who might reach out and pluck an unsuspecting child from between the trees. Take them home as a captive, or suck the soul from their body right then and there.
At first, we thought they might have died in the fires, that the daemon flame choked them out and drove them extinct. But there have been more stories of them from hikers since the fires died down.
The cryptids in these woods are protectors, coming after the loggers and poachers, and they can’t be too happy with theflame that keeps razing the trees, leaving behind nothing but soot and ash.
I try not to think about what might happen if one of them gets its hands on Maeve. Reaching up from the water and pulling her in, keeping her below the surface until she drowns. Swarms of shining green fae, so small they look like bugs, swarming in through her ears and mouth, dicing up her insides for daring to show her face in these woods.
Each thought makes me run faster until I turn the corner and see her wolf.
Copper and shining in the moonlight, flitting between the trees like an auburn streak of lightning. Gorgeous. Just the sight of her—and the twist of my scent in her own—makes me want her.
When I collide with her, I’m trying to take her down easy, gently. As I do, I wonder why it is that we haven’t done this before. Shifting together, coming out to the woods.
Though it is definitely something I’d like to do during the day. Something that would be more enjoyable without the constant thoughts of tree-walkers trying to petrify me into bark for eternity.
“What thefuck—” Maeve grunts after she shifts back, scrambling off me, her hands sinking into my fur. Obviously, I’ve shifted around others in their human forms before, but this feels different, more intimate.
She stands, breathing hard, her dress tattered and torn, one of the sleeves hanging off her shoulder. As comfortable as I feel in my wolf, I have to shift back to talk to her.
“Maeve—”
“You can’t just—tacklepeople!”
Anger rises up in me, and I turn on her. “And you can’t just run away every time something scares you!”
“What are you—”
I stalk toward her, standing right in front of her, trying to breathe through the way her scent sits, thick and sweet, in the air. “Tell me you’re going back to Los Angeles because it’s what you really want.”
She blinks at me, takes a tiny step back. “What?”
“Tell me,” I urge, stepping toward her, not letting her put space between us. “That you’re going back to Los Angeles because it’s what’s going to make you really happy. That it’s what you need. If you tell me that you're going back to California has nothing to do with you running away from this thing between me and you, then I’ll believe it. I’ll accept it.”
Maeve looks like I’ve slapped her. Like she’s either going to throw up or start crying. I’d take anything over the carefully blank expression she’s trying to assemble to keep her real emotions from showing. I’d take anything that lets me keep her, rather than allowing her to hide this thing between us away.
“I—” She shakes her head, turns away, an angry sob rising up in her throat and breaking free.
I stare after her, not understanding why this is so hard for her. Not understanding how she could not want this thing, with how good it’s been for us.
“Do yourealizewhat life was like for me in high school?” she asks, turning around, tears streaming down her cheeks as she looks at me. “Do you realize that it was all that shit with you that drove me to that group? With Phina and Tara? That it all led up to that awful night that ruinedeverything?”
