LINDY

Hundreds of miles, one itty-bitty apocalypse, and somehow, this damn smoldering-hot wolf still found her.

Lindy ripped off her mask, glaring at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Wes glanced at her, an eyebrow rising over his dark eyes as he steered the SUV away from the strip mall. “You’re welcome.”

She turned away, fuming. Screw him. Yes, she’d been in trouble back there. Yes, there’d been even more of those monsters than she anticipated. But this wasn’t an improvement.

The draugar would just kill her. Wes was a wolf. He’d not only kill her but tell his pack about her too, and then maybe they’d turn on Hayden. Her friend’s parents. Anybody.

Remember, Melinda. With their every breath, shifters lie.

Lindy fought the urge to shift on the seat. Thanks, Mom. Like the Order was so much better?

God, what the hell was he doing out here? Tracking her? Hunting her down? For all she knew, he’d already learned everything about her past. Maybe Hayden told him. Yeah, she’d promised Lindy she wouldn’t, weeks ago when Lindy had been forced to reveal what she was or else watch her friend die, but… dammit…

Maybe the truth was out, so Hayden’s safety wasn’t at stake. Lindy’s family might be in danger instead. Wes might just be biding his time. He hadn’t killed her already or left her to die, after all.

Maybe he wanted information first.

“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” Wes asked.

Ice shot through her, his question a confirmation of all her fears. Any second now, he would tell her he knew what she’d once been, or demand to see her wrist beneath the coat, seeking the only evidence he’d need that she was everything the ulfhednar sought to kill.

Not that she could blame them, exactly. The Order of Nidhogg had damn near annihilated his kind. They’d driven the wolves to the brink of extinction, determined to relegate the ulfhednar to the history books, right alongside bear shifters and anything else that had once inhabited the world.

But for the Order, that was the point.

We kill them so the world will die.

Lindy swallowed hard. “Martial arts classes. Self-defense or whatever.”

He was silent. She watched him from the corner of her eye.

“Impressive.”

She couldn’t find the words to respond to that. “How’d you find me?”

Wes hesitated. “Got lucky.”

Her gut twisted, and she couldn’t put her finger on why. There was just something odd in his voice.

He shifted his grip on the steering wheel. “Hayden thought you might be headed for Minneapolis. This was the fastest way there.”

She was silent. So Hayden said that. What else had she told this guy?

Wetting her lips, Lindy measured her words carefully. “Well, if you want to just drop me off somewhere, I can—”

“What?” Wes scoffed, glancing at her askance and then returning his eyes to the road. “We need to head back to Mariposa. You—”

“Excuse me?”

“We can get help. Reinforcements. More supplies.”

Her brow furrowed. “For what?”

“Rescuing your family.”

She blinked.

“You’re going after them, right?”

She stared at him, speechless.

Wes threw her a short glance, his dark eyes becoming guarded as he turned the SUV onto an on-ramp toward the southbound interstate. “Right?”

Why the hell would he help her rescue…

Lindy pushed her incredulity aside. “Listen.” She kept her voice level. “I’m not going back to Mariposa yet. But thanks to that Order bitch and the draugar, I need another car. So if you’ll just drop me off here, I can—”

“Not happening.”

WES

He crept forward, moving as fast as silence would allow. Beyond the corner of the strip mall, an expanse of empty parking lot waited, enclosed on two sides by shops and sheltered from the road by some kind of family restaurant up ahead. The terrain around them was mostly flat, with trees and a few more houses, and almost no cover at all.

Dammit.

“Come on,” he murmured. “Quick.”

They ran for the relative shelter of the restaurant wall. Hurrying along it, he peered around the corner, scanning the road past the building. A car dealership stood about a city block’s distance ahead on the opposite side of the street, numerous vehicles still standing untouched in its lot.

A breath left him. That’d work.

Checking around again swiftly, he started out from the shelter of the restaurant. They’d need to break into the dealership itself to find keys, considering hot-wiring basically didn’t exist the way Hollywood showed it. But with any luck, they’d have their pick of—

Rapid crunching sounds came from his right. He threw a fast look toward the sound just as a young woman with dark hair barreled from the neighborhood they’d just passed, running for her life.

Her eyes went wide at the sight of them. “Run!”

A dozen draugar charged out behind her. A man with a face like a skull strode after her, glowing green light twisting around him like a toxic aurora borealis.

Wes grabbed Lindy, shoving her ahead of him toward the road. “Go!”

She took off, and he bolted after her, racing toward the car dealership across the broad expanse of snowy road.

“No!” the dark-haired woman shouted. “Don’t—”

Draugar poured around the cars at the dealership, shrieking and scrambling toward them across the icy lot. An Allegiant followed them, green auroras swirling around him. On the road, Wes skidded, grabbing for Lindy as he fought to change direction quickly. Catching her arm, he hauled her ahead of him again, pushing her toward the houses beyond the strip mall.

The Allegiant who’d chased the woman shouted a command in some bastardized form of old Norse. For one moment, nothing seemed to happen, and then shrieks rose from within the neighborhood ahead too, and corpses staggered out from between the houses.

Wes slid to a halt on the ice and snow. They were surrounded.

Cursing vehemently, he backed away from the draugar while his wolf stretched beneath his skin, ready to shift and rip through as many of the bastards as he could to protect Lindy. It’d cost him the winter gear he wore, but that was a small price compared to watching the draugar tear her apart.

Kill them, the wolf raged. Kill them all.