he ate. The real danger with them is all about the sheer number, and I hope with everything in me that more aren’t coming.
Something slams into my back, the sharp stab of teeth sinking into my back leg. I buck my weight into the bastard, hurling him into a nearby trunk. I’m on him in seconds, slashing my jaws across his throat. After all, decapitation is the best way to ensure they don’t get back up.
His head tumbles to the ground and into a nearby shrub.
I spit out the rancid taste on my tongue, my throat closing up, gagging at the smell. My fear isn’t that I’ll get sick with their virus. From what I learned down in Shadowlands, most of us wolves are not resilient to the disease, while other wolf packs like the X-Clan are immune. But us normal wolves are carriers. The moment we die, we’ll become a fucking zombie, so the trick is to not die anytime soon and ensure our heads come right off.
Heaving for breath, I sweep the area with my gaze, past the two undead who aren’t moving. Let’s hope they are all that made it up here, because these bastards congregate like the great river of death coming from the underworld. Been there, done that. Prefer to never encounter it again.
I head back to Stone and the girls, transforming into my human form on my way. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. My attention homes in on Narah. The way she’s checking me out is not missed, nor the way her gaze dips to my groin. Yeah, it’s hard to miss it, and I’m not even erect to truly give her the full show, but even at my relaxed state, I’m damn big.
“That wasn’t so bad, now was it? You three butterflies all okay?”
Stone gives me the death glare, then nudges Narah back at me, and I gladly seize her arm. In that same moment, a gargled groan cuts through the early morning from deeper in the woods. We all turn in that direction to find another damn brain muncher hunched over the dead Alpha who attacked Narah, tearing at his intestines.
“Eww.” Jae looks away and Narah takes her into her arms, protective of her sister, which I can respect.
Stone doesn’t say a word and heads across the woods to finish the zombie.
“Well, you girls picked a great time to head into the woods,” I say, gaining myself no response. But glares are in abundance.
“You know you have no choice,” I remind Narah. “No one breaks a deal with Ragnar.”
“He never completed his end of the bargain. I have two sisters,” she reminds me, but even as she rebels, I watch the dread slide behind her gaze from our earlier chat about Kaira.
It doesn’t take Stone long to return. Without a word, he hands my bloody ax back to me, takes Jae by the arm, and starts dragging her toward the front of the building. “I’m ready to get out of these fucking woods.”
I turn toward my witch girl. “Did you enjoy my show?”
She eyes me with a narrowing gaze. “Do you mean killing two dead things that could barely stand on their own feet?” She tugs against my grip, though her bravery is just an illusion, seeing how she’s trembling and how her gaze keeps darting around us like a scared little sheep. “And I can walk on my own.”
“You lost that privilege with the shit you pulled earlier. Plus, I’m talking about my strip show for you, my sweet sparrow.”
That time she laughs, all fake of course, but I bet I’ll be in her thoughts tonight.
5
Narah
The morning sunlight spills out over the horizon, bruising the sky with reds and oranges. I stare out of the bathroom window over the town and beyond, my gaze grazing over the landscape for anything. But it’s dead. Not a soul in sight.
A cool breeze sweeps through my hair, cooling the sweat collecting at my nape. I stirred most of the night, getting no more than an hour’s sleep after Crius and Stone caught us escaping. I’m still burning up that we could have gotten away if we’d left earlier. But then what?
Face off with zombies?
Hellish, walking corpses who are now up in the North. I’ve heard rumors of them, like most, but to see one left me shaking. I might have peed my pants in terror a bit, too, because everything about them is wrong. Yet Crius didn’t blink an