forth as if caged. Nothing but a band of coyotes. Urien had been wrong. The outside world presented little danger. Not compared to the larger, taller threat silently stalking her.
She stepped onto the roadway.
A stench like feces and rotting garbage filled her nostrils. Terror squeezed her heart like a strong fist. Emily recognized the forms as they came closer to the property’s edge. Close enough for her to smell their hot, fetid breath. Close enough for her to see the flash of black in their eyes.
Morphs, the ones who feasted on Draicon flesh.
Emily screamed.
Chapter 2
R aphael tore down the pathway, alarmed at the distressed cry. There, from the woods’ edge, near the property line. Emily. Something threatened her.
Instinct took over. He ran, waving his hands and eliminating his clothing as he did so, changing into wolf.
She stood in the gathering darkness, gloved hands to her mouth. Trembling as if a mighty wind shook her.
Just on the other side of the small, narrow dirt road he saw them.
A line of Morphs staring her down. As if they wanted her dead and would devour her heart.
While it still beat inside her chest.
With a snarl, Raphael leapt onto the road, charging the Morphs staring at Emily.
“Stop! They won’t come here!”
Stark fear in her voice snapped him to a halt. His paws skidded in the loose gravel. The Morphs inched backward, their hunched, shriveled bodies twisting, talons outstretched as they hissed at him.
Raphael growled at the enemy. Wanting to snap and tear and destroy, every instinct rising to attack. But his charge was his first concern. He wouldn’t leave Emily alone, facing danger.
The Morphs shapeshifted into wolves, loping off silently. Raphael trotted back to Emily and shifted back to human form. A cold wind brushed against his naked skin, chilling his bones. He clothed himself with a wave of his hand, looked at her terrorized face.
“Are you all right?”
Emily stared after the Morphs. “They won’t come on the property. Urien said it was the magick shield on the land, but I think it’s me. They fear me.”
Raphael sensed her inner turmoil and challenged her. “Then why not leave?”
A frown creased her lovely face. “I should. I could, but in the past, Urien said they’d attack in packs, cloning themselves and sacrificing the clones to kill me. They would strip the skin from my bones and eat my heart to ingest all the magick I have. I know I’m going to die, but I don’t want to die like that.”
Anguish tinged her voice. Raphael’s heart dropped to his stomach. Damn, this was going to be tough. All this time he’d been Kallan, he’d never faced such a challenge.
Think of her, not yourself.
“Emily, let’s get back. You’re shivering,” he said in his gentlest tone.
Raphael shrugged out of his leather jacket and went to drape it about her slender shoulders. She jerked back as if he were a hot iron. “Don’t touch me!”
“I was only going to offer you this.”
“Then you’d have to destroy it after I wore it.” She backed away. “You’re supposed to be wise. Everything I touch is contaminated. My own people can’t stand being within ten feet of me. They won’t let me touch anything. Even the livestock. I can’t feed them, water them, care for them. I’m unclean.”
Raphael’s heart twisted.
“Stop looking at me like that. I hate pity. Damn you.”
With a swirl of skirts, she spun around and stormed off toward her cottage. Raphael gazed after her. He’d leave her alone for now. Come morning, they had work to do.
Once Emily had loved the dark. Now it brought only fear of the night and terrible dreams chasing her through sleep. Last night’s had been particularly gruesome. Long, yellowed fangs ready to sink into her flesh, eager to rip and tear.
Emily hooked a band of hair behind her ear. Before sleeping last night, she had managed to calm herself enough to decipher a snippet of the sacred texts.
“The Destroyer has been sent to kill her. The Chosen One surrenders herself to the Destroyer.” Two sentences having a vague interpretation. But what if she did surrender herself to the Destroyer? What then?
She had become too upset, and the words blurred to nothingness before her eyes.
Emily poured herself a cup of coffee, donned her gloves and took the cup outside to enjoy the morning air. Distress filled her as she spotted Raphael sitting on the rocker on her porch. In a dove-gray T-shirt, jeans and boots, his powerful body tensed, he stared into the woods.
“Why