LUNA

Luna sighed as a breeze swept by, the wind swirling the ash and dirt that remained of the forest floor. The world may be hell, but reclaiming even a part of it felt like a victory. Not to mention how many more people they could help, if they had the space to—

A snarl came from her left. She spun, grabbing for the machete at her waist, but then the draug was on her. The bag of stones landed awkwardly beneath her and the blade clattered away as she tumbled to the ground, shoving and kicking to keep the snapping teeth and rotted fingers from her throat. There was no time to shift, not yet. The seconds it would take would be all the draug needed to kill her.

But she could buy those seconds. Years of martial arts training meant she knew how to fight on the ground.

Except he was everywhere. She couldn’t leverage him off her, couldn’t shift a center of gravity that kept moving so wildly. Her kicking legs struck air as often as his body, and every blow she landed might as well have been hitting clay. Foggy eyes, blood-crusted skin, and a name tag from a local grocery store flashed in front of her. Phil.

Gods help her, she was going to be killed by a corpse named Phil.

A solid wall of fur surged past her, taking the draug with it. Luna scrambled to her feet in time to see Phil turn to dust in the teeth of a bear so massive, it was terrifying all on its own. Covered in brown fur like mahogany wood, the creature was easily the size of a car, with paws larger than her head and claws like machetes all on their own. Thick scars crisscrossed the bear’s fur in a haphazard pattern, forming a map of savagery across its rippling muscles. As the draug crumbled away, the berserker spun, sweeping its gaze across the forest as if ready to destroy every burnt tree.

Trying to hide how much she was shaking, Luna checked the forest as well, her body tingling with the impulse to shift and tear into the nearest thing that appeared threatening.

She reminded herself that didn’t include the bear.

Probably.

In the distance, she could feel her pack hurrying toward her, their worry clear, and she exhaled, focusing briefly on reassuring them she was fine. After a moment, they slowed, warily accepting the response.

Huffing as if scarcely satisfied by the seemingly empty forest, the bear turned toward her, and her attention instantly snapped back to the creature. Rationally, she knew there was no reason to be nervous. The berserkers and ulfhednar were on the same side. But she’d also never been this close to a shifted bear before, and the predator inside her wasn’t certain of its intentions.

Plus, the thing probably had a thousand pounds on her.

“Thanks,” she said.

The bear walked toward her, and she tensed. Scars twisted across its face too, and its eyes watched her as if taking in every detail. The old wounds weren’t helpful for identifying who it was in this form, since scars in one shape didn’t carry over to the other, but something about the bear’s eyes made her say, “Knox?”

Another huff left the shifter, and the small jerk of its head made her think the bear was responding with a yes.

She swallowed hard. So this was what he looked like in shifted form.

Gods, what had happened to him?

The bear paused. Carefully, he eased back a step as if realizing he made her uncomfortable.

A breath entered her lungs, only slightly shaky, and her eyes tracked over his scars again. That he had a scar across his face in human form, she’d known. But it didn’t make sense that he’d have one there as a bear too. That wasn’t how it normally worked. Scars didn’t carry over.

Maybe he’d been injured in both forms.

“Do you, um…” She cast a quick glance around for the bag of clothes most shifters kept with them these days, spotting it a moment later by a burnt log. Hurrying over, she grabbed the bag and extended it toward him. “I mean, if you… Well, you probably should stay in bear—”

She cut off as he took the bag with his teeth.

And damn, they were huge teeth.

The bear walked off, rounding a tumble of large boulders. Seidr whispered through the air.

Her breath caught at the sound of the bag unzipping, followed by the rustle of fabric a few moments later, and she made herself turn away, focusing her attention on literally anything else. Brushing the dirt and debris from her clothes, maybe. And damn, that draugar had made a rat’s nest of her hair. She’d need a brush to get all the tangles out of it. Not that she cared what Knox saw when he looked at her. But behind those stones, the male would be totally naked, and while, yeah, nudity wasn’t really a huge deal with shifters, owing to the fact they all ended up that way after changing form, she still—

A rustle came from behind her, and she whirled, dropping her hands to her sides quickly. Knox stepped around the boulders, a long-sleeved shirt, cargo pants, and thick boots thoroughly in place.

“Are you okay?” he asked immediately.

She cleared her throat, bashing down the utterly inappropriate surge of disappointment at seeing him fully clothed. “Yeah. You?”

“I’m good.”

Her mouth moved, but she couldn’t think of a damned thing to say. “Good.”

He didn’t respond.

Not sure what else to do, she bent down and hefted the bag of seidr-infused stones from the ground. Slinging it up onto her shoulders, she winced when the weight thudded against her back. There’d definitely be a bruise there by evening.

Knox took a step toward her. “Are you sure you’re all right?” There was a hard note in his voice, like he was ready to kill something if it was hurting her.

A shiver coursed through her at the sound, hot and strange, and she couldn’t make sense of it. She was probably imagining that he sounded… well, concerned.

And why should that matter? She’d been taking care of herself for twenty years. Some male’s concern was totally unnecessary. Hell, it should probably be insulting.

The weird butterfly feeling inside her didn’t change.

She managed a smile, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him again. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Holding onto the expression, she started onward, avoiding his eyes. Faint scratching sounds came from the burnt undergrowth as he followed her.

“Do you want any help with those?” Knox asked her.

“No, thanks. I’ve got them.”

Seconds turned into minutes of uncomfortable silence, and she stopped herself from glancing back at him, a thousand questions pressing at her that she really shouldn’t voice. But why had he been the closest berserker in the area, anyway? Was it coincidence? And where had his scars come from?

Was he seeing anybody?

Not that she cared about that last one.

An impulse carried through her bond from the other members of her pack, like a tingling awareness passing through her mind, cutting off her babbling train of thoughts. The group had gone far enough. Time to put the stones in place.

She stopped, reaching up for the bag.

Knox glanced around, wary. “Is everything all right?”

“Um, yeah.” How much did he know about her kind? “The pack just… It’s time to stop.”

His brow twitched up, but he only nodded.

Feeling awkward, she slung the bag down to the ground and grimaced when her back protested the motion. Tugging open the top, she set to taking out stones the size of oranges, all of them gathered from what remained of the gardens around the manor. The rest of the pack was to her right, so she began arranging the stones in a line away from them. The line would become the edge of the barrier’s perimeter, at least until they decided to expand it again, and—

What the hell?

She froze, her hand gripping the last of the stones. At the top of the next rise, a crack hung in midair, and only darkness lay inside. It was like a tiny version of the enormous dark tears in the sky, except that instead of taking up all of the heavens like the ones above her, this one was only a couple feet in length.

“What the fuck?” With a speed that totally belied his size, Knox stepped past her and put himself between her and the thing. “Don’t go any closer.”

“You think I’m an idiot?” Cautiously, she released the perimeter stone, not taking her eyes from the dark gash as the rock thudded to the ground. Straightening carefully, she touched Knox’s arm, noting in spite of herself the wealth of muscles beneath his shirt sleeve. Gods, his upper arm was wider than her hand.

She shoved the observation down hard. “Come on.”

Together, they eased back a step, though Knox kept himself between her and the dark gash in the air the entire time.

It never moved. Never changed. After a few yards, the two of them stopped.

Knox’s eyes flicked over to her palm on his bicep.

A blush burned her cheeks. She dropped her hand. “Sorry. Um—” Floundering, she took another step back and then turned to head toward the pack. “I should go tell the others about whatever the hell this—”

“Stop!” Knox cried.

Ice shot through her like someone had injected pure winter night into her veins, and she looked back. A new gash of darkness lay at the end of her fingertips, the black slash hanging in midair even though there’d been no sign of it before. Where she touched it, her fingers were just gone, swallowed completely in black like she’d dipped her hand in ink. In an instant, the frigid sensation accelerated and expanded, charging up through her arm and out into her body.

Terror flooded her. “Knox—”

The world vanished.