her back on a stranger who, in those few seconds, had begged Rosa for her life.
Down at the foot of the slope she tore herself away from the man, ready to scale it again and intervene after all, shout at the Panthera that she was the only one they really wanted, the Lamia they hated so much.
Except that that wouldn’t change anything.
Up in the darkness, Jessie began to scream.
The man leaped after Rosa and hauled her down again. “If you don’t come with me, you’ll die,” he hissed at her, still with that dangerous feline growl in his voice. She thought it attractive in Alessandro, merely menacing in this man.
She wanted to resist, contradict him, run to help the girl.
But she did none of those things. She just stared at him, feeling something die inside her, maybe her pity, maybe only her brief moment of desperate courage, and then she nodded.
“This way,” he whispered, and ran into the tunnel ahead of her. “Come on.”
She followed him, hoping that Jessie’s screeching and howling would lessen down there, but instead it was amplified. Many growls and much feline mewling mingled with it as the Panthera quarreled over their prey again, and then, as before, an animal roar silenced them. It did not sound as fierce and barbaric; more domineering. A short command in the language of the Panthera, and immediately there was quiet apart from Jessie’s weeping and pleading.
The sounds that finally silenced the girl almost brought Rosa to her knees. The noise of snapping and tearing echoed through the tunnel, as if the Panthera were feasting down here in the shadows, right beside Rosa.
The man seized her again and pulled her along. “They’ll kill us both if they catch up with us.”
“You’re one of them.”
He didn’t deny it.
“Why are you helping me?”
She might have expected anything, or nothing. An ally of Alessandro, one of his informers in the New York branch of his clan. Or one of the Panthera wanting her all to himself.
But not this.
“Because of Valerie,” he said quietly.
She asked no more questions, but only ran faster now, away from the sound of the angry jaws snapping behind her.
They reached the other end of the tunnel, turned down a path branching off, and ran along the bank of a small lake. Then the man pulled her after him, by the arm, into the undergrowth. It didn’t grow so luxuriantly here. They were near the edge of the Ramble, approaching the well-tended, neat, and tidy part of the park.
In the cover of a line of trees, the outskirts of a little wood, he stopped and looked out at the open terrain beyond. He was still naked, and by the light of a nearby lantern she saw that he was trembling. Now that he had no panther coat to protect him, he was freezing like any ordinary human being. Neither of them would last much longer.
“Is that East Drive?” she whispered. Ahead of them, beyond a narrow snowfield, lay a paved road, entirely empty.
He nodded. His lips were blue.
“But you’re heading for somewhere, right?” she asked doubtfully.
“Not far now.” He looked right and left, then back over his shoulder. “Run!”
They left the protection of the shadows under the trees. Rosa’s steel-toed boots left deep prints in the frozen snow, while he ran across it barefoot as if part of him were still a cat.
“Are they following us?” she asked.
“They won’t stop to eat their fill until they have you all. Then they take all the prey to a place where they divvy it up.”
They crossed the street, and Rosa thought of following it south. He saw the way she was looking, and shook his head. “There’s a barrier where this road meets Terrace Drive. You wouldn’t get far. Not in human form.”
“What’s your name?” she asked, as they reached the trees on the other side of the road. The trunks were much farther apart here, and there were few bushes.
“Mattia.”
“Carnevare?”
He nodded again. “You’re Rosa.”
She was going to ask how he knew, but he got in first. “Valerie,” he said. “She sometimes talked about you.”
Behind them she heard a triumphant roar as the pack streamed out onto the snowy field.
THE BOATHOUSE
THE SWEAT ON ROSA’S forehead was icy cold. Her face felt numb. She was running eastward with Mattia through the trees, while the Panthera chased after them.
How much longer before the effect of the serum wore off? Five minutes? Seven? There were no general rules; every Arcadian reacted to it differently. She