Keeping Secret (Secret McQueen) - By Sierra Dean Page 0,58

the bastard in his ruined testicles. Insult to injury wouldn’t do me any good here. Nor would his word. At best I’d bought Holden and myself a head start.

I ran from the circle back to the pit. Sure enough, I’d barely dragged Holden from the hole before I heard Carn’s raspy voice scream.

“Kill them. Make it hurt.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Going back the way we’d come was out of the question. There had been no exit from the island, no escape route, so when I grabbed Holden and screamed, “Run,” it was deeper into the woods we fled. We couldn’t escape their noses—the Loups-Garous would chase us until we were caught—and if that happened, I doubted Carn would let me barter with him again.

Holden and I barreled forward, moving with a speed only vampires could manage, giving us a slight advantage over the wolves. We needed to find where they kept their boats—they had to have at least one—and we had to be off the island before the ferals caught up with us. I clung to Holden’s hand as we ran, deathly afraid the moment I let him go he would disappear and be lost forever.

My lungs burned but still I ran. I ran until my blood was like acid, burning up the inside of my body with a vengeance for what I was asking my limbs to do for me.

The woods stopped as abruptly as they’d begun, and we found ourselves on a shoreline not unlike the one we’d been dumped on the previous night. Everywhere we looked there was nothing but sycamore and swamp water. No boat. No escape.

“We follow the shore. There has to be a boat somewhere,” I said, trying to squash my fear with a healthy shot of logic.

From the belly of the woods the racket of the pack pursuing us sang through the otherwise quiet night air. They were shouting what sounded like war chants to each other, songs of blood and revenge that didn’t sound fully human.

With Holden’s hand still clasped in mine I ran down the shore. No direction we turned felt safe. The hunting voices came from everywhere like a living nightmare. We ran, our feet slipping on the slick, mossy shore. The topography of the island itself was against us, trying to pluck at our ankles and throw us into the swamp. I staggered, and Holden pulled me up by my armpits, half-dragging me as he struggled to maintain our pace.

And then it was there, two hundred yards ahead. Salvation in the form of a yellow inflatable dingy. All we had to do was get to it and—

The pack poured out from the woods between us and the boat.

Holden skidded to a stop, and I slammed into his back. Behind us, more of the wolves spilled out from between the trees, leaving us surrounded on the beach within sight of our escape but unable to reach it.

I was unarmed, and we were outnumbered ten to one. We’d be able to take a few of them out, but we were right back where we’d been the night before, and this time they weren’t going to play nice. Their leader said they were to kill us, and their lean, menacing faces promised to follow through on his orders.

“Holden,” I whispered against the back of his neck.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

He squeezed my hand and held it over his heart. “So am I.”

I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the damp material of his shirt, breathing him in one last time. Any second now they would come, and we would make our last stand on this shitty bog.

Any second now.

A wolf made a worried yip, and another whimpered. I opened one eye and looked to the woods, then opened the other eye and stared in shock. A faint red glow, swirling like a tornado, was advancing through the trees towards us. The sharp scent of urine punctuated the air as several of the wolves wet themselves before running into the woods.

One of the younger ones, directly in line of the red light, panicked and ran into the water, splashing around like a madman. Suddenly he screamed and the splashes doubled, a frothy boil of water tossing on the surface showing flashes of blood-red meat and green-scaled skin. A gator had gotten him. The water calmed, the scent of blood mingling with the other fear odors, creating an atmosphere of terror amongst the remaining wolves.

They scattered, leaving Holden and me alone on the beach still embracing as we