by Skye Malone
Where was she? Where the hell—
She darted across the road up ahead, draugar on her heels. More of the creatures emerged from behind a restaurant across the road, their bodies seeming fresh enough that they probably had been diners from inside the building before something killed them.
Lindy skidded, trying to change direction fast. The monsters grabbed for her.
Oh gods, Wes wasn’t going to reach her in time.
Whirling quickly, she slashed out with what he’d swear was a machete. The head of a draug tumbled away, but she didn’t stop. Her other hand held a gun, and the crack of weapons fire was audible even from inside the SUV. Bullets tore through the legs of the draugar, precise and rapid, and each creature that came close to her lost its head with deadly speed. Bodies collapsed to the concrete all around the woman moving like a trained fighter amid the horde.
Holy shit.
One hand fumbling for the window control, he sped up, charging toward her, and then whipped the wheel around as he hit the brakes. The SUV skidded to a stop only a few yards away.
“Get in!” he shouted through the open window.
She gave the SUV an alarmed look. The draugar charged.
Her blade struck instantly, cutting the monsters down. But for an eternal moment, she didn’t move toward the SUV. Incredulity flooded him. What the hell was she thinking?
Lindy’s face twitched behind her mask like she was swearing to herself. She ran for the vehicle and scrambled inside.
Wes floored it, leaving the draugar shrieking in their wake.
5
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.”
She tensed, keeping her breathing steady as she inched her hand toward her gun. “So… what? You take me hostage and drag me back to—”
“What? No!” He looked at her incredulously.
She froze.
He steered the SUV onto the highway, weaving around an abandoned car. “I—” His head twitched toward the city behind them. “I’m trying to help you. And your family. I swear.”
She eyed him warily.
“I just think this would go better with backup, so we should get to Mariposa as soon as we can.”
Shivers raced through her, laced with darkness and all the myriad reasons that was a terrible, terrible plan. Simply having Wes here was dangerous, and not just because of how—even now—he looked like a goddamn tattooed model, all sharp angles to his face with piercing, dark eyes that did absurd things to her insides.
But she could kill him. Kill anyone near her, for that matter. If she lost this fight and couldn’t hang on…
“No,” she managed. “It’ll take too much time. Just drop me off—”
“How many times do I have to say that’s not an option?”
“You have no idea what you’re messing with here! You—” She clamped her mouth shut, turning away.
The thud of the wheels rolling over the pavement was the only sound.
He drew a deep breath. “Then I’ll come with you.”
“Not happening.”
His dark eyes brooked no dissent. “It’s that or I head back for Mariposa right now. I’m not leaving you alone out here.”
“I don’t need a babysitter. Just let me out somewhere. I’ll grab another car and be on my way.”
“While I do what? Go back to my best friend and say you were fine when I left you, but the gods know what’s happened since then? That you could be dead in a ditch for all I know?” He shook his head. “What about your friend? You think Hayden wasn’t terrified, knowing you were out here alone?”
Lindy looked away, her stomach twisting. Bastard.
But the words worked all the same. Guilt gnawed at her, despite how she knew she couldn’t have explained more to Hayden. Not without risking the other wolves learning about her past. If she wanted a safe place for her family to return once she found them, no one could know what she was. What she and her father and brother had all been, for one reason or another, even if they weren’t exactly that anymore.
Anxiety stirred her stomach. Her dad would be okay. Frankie too. Her baby brother had scarcely been out of diapers in those days, and whatever initiation rites Mom had done on him wouldn’t be enough to hurt him now.
&n
bsp; Hopefully.
Pushing her worries down as best she could, she inched her eyes toward Wes. He wasn’t acting like he wanted to interrogate her, or even like he was suspicious of her, really. Confused, yeah. But not like he was waiting to attack.
Shifters lie.
So was she.
“What are you saying?” she asked.
Wes let out a breath, his hands working on the steering wheel. “We’ll travel fast. That’s what you’re after, right? Reaching them as soon as possible? And what’s your plan after you get to Minneapolis?”
She hesitated, dropping her gaze away. “Bring my family back to Mariposa.”
“Great. Let’s do that, then.”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to look at him for fear he’d somehow see in her expression a hint of the rest of her plan. Specifically, the part where she had to die.
“I’m not leaving you alone out here, Lindy,” he said as if reading something in her silence anyway.
Stupid, pointless quivers of heat radiated from her insides at the sound of him saying her name, and furiously, she smashed them down too. Being attracted to this wolf was madness. Hell, all of this was madness, and she had to find a way to end it.
“Whatever,” she said.
She looked back to the window, fixing a cold expression on her face, for all that she could feel his attention on her like a fingertip brushing her skin. But after a moment, the SUV slowed and carefully, he steered it across a mud-covered median and onto the northbound lane.
Lindy didn’t look back. She’d wait for her chance because sooner or later, it would come, and somehow, she’d get Wes to leave. For his sake. For hers.
She had to.
6
Wes
Wes could guarantee Lindy was trying to figure out how to make him leave.
In silence, he maneuvered the SUV through the obstacle course of the interstate, following his gut instinct and innate sense of direction more than the road signs to know they were heading the right way. Somewhere out on the other end of this was Minneapolis, but even if he drove top speed for hours, the city would still take days to reach.
Days which she’d spend trying to get away from him.
His wolf growled, stewing in frustration. Taking her hostage, she’d said. Merciful gods, he wasn’t trying to do that. She had every right to do whatever she wanted, including crossing this entire hellscape of a country with nothing but a machete and a handgun, if that’s what she chose. And sure, it would be sheer lunacy, but her family was out there.
If it was his pack, he’d be doing the same.
He just couldn’t turn away, was all. On some level, he knew he should. She resented the hell out of his presence, for one. He barely knew her, for two. More than that, it wasn’t safe for her to be this close to him, for a million reasons that began and ended with the words human and wolf. And while his insides curdled at the thought of hurting her, that wasn’t enough. He couldn’t afford a mistake, not one, especially not with a human woman whose scent kept making his skin want to shift and his cock threaten to grow hard.
Trusting his damn wolf around this? Not an option.
His eyes twitched toward her. Even in the middle of the fucking apocalypse, she looked beautiful, her cheeks flushed by the cold and the wavy locks of her amber hair curling past the shoulders of her thick winter coat. Meanwhile, the fire in her words and actions intrigued him and his wolf both, like some ulfhednar version of catnip. He wanted to know more about her. Wanted to know everything because damn if she wasn’t an enigma and a half. As a result, simply turning around and leaving her out here was totally off the table. Never mind that he would have struggled at the thought of abandoning a total stranger in all this. But her?
Impossible.
Who the hell was she, anyway? From what little he’d gathered from his pack—not wanting to seem suspicious by asking about her too much and all—Lindy had been a close friend of Hayden’s for years, worked in the flower shop with her, and was the female’s roommate for quite some time too. They seemed nearly as close as sisters, which automatically ruled out any fear she’d be Order. Any member of that group would have killed Hayden on sight. From what he understood, up until a few weeks back, she hadn’t even known Hayden was a wolf or that the ulfhednar existed. An attack by a bastard from the Order necessitated telling Lindy the truth, and honestly, she’d reacted to the news of shifters and murderous secret societies about as well as anyone could be expected to.
Which was to say, she’d been tense. Suspicious. Nervous and snappish and ready to retreat.
Rather like now, minus the machete and handgun.
Had Hayden known her friend could handle herself like that? She’d seemed terrified for Lindy back at the bunker. And, sure, even if Lindy was a clearly consummate badass, the world was a bit much right now for anyone short of an army—which would be a good reason for Hayden’s fear.
But still.
Wes returned his attention to the road. Wherever Lindy had learned to fight, she’d obviously learned well because, gods, she’d been incredible today. On edge but ferocious, equal to any wolf he’d ever seen. Now that his fear for her life was fading, his blood heated at the memory. The thought of her in danger was horrifying. But the sight of her fighting, of her speed and prowess…
Damn him, it was hot as hell.
He shifted on the seat, bashing down the useless, idiotic arousal. Lindy wanted as much to do with him as she did with a draug, so letting himself get distracted like this was only going to make things more difficult. He wouldn’t abandon her even if she despised him, because he couldn’t stomach the thought of her dying out here when maybe he could have done something to stop it. So no matter what, he needed to keep his guard up because the moment he slipped, she’d take off.
And then he’d be stuck chasing her once more, hoping to all the gods that she didn’t get killed before he found her again.
The highway rumbled on, the only sound as the hours crept by. After a time, he stopped to refill the tank from the containers in the back of the SUV, watching her all the while in case she bolted. Later, when he brought out a few of the cans of food he’d brought with him, she eyed him like maybe they were poisoned before retrieving her own supplies from within her backpack. They ate in silence and she barely looked at him, but whenever she did, the steely distrust in her eyes was enough to cut stone.
Minneapolis felt as far away as the moon.
As the miles passed, the gray sky shifted toward darkness, the light fading swiftly until everything became an endless abyss. Even in Mariposa, there’d been some small measure of illumination from the security lamps around them. But here… there was nothing. No billboards in the darkness. No glow of a city on the horizon. The moon and stars were gone, swallowed by the overcast sky that never seemed to change, and only the gods knew if those distant lights were even still up there.
He hoped so, though the myths of Ragnarok said even the moon and the sun would disappear in the end.
His skin crawled and he swallowed hard. He and his pack had trained relentlessly in the wilderness, prior to moving down to Colorado. Eighteen months in the wilds of Alaska meant plenty of nights where they’d stayed up, needing to keep watch while being hunted by any number of predators—and humans most of all. He’d long since learned to go without sleep if necessary, so driving all night didn’t worry him.
But he still had a sneaking suspicion he’d made a colossal mistake.
The world was an abyss, and the SUV’s headlights were like two lonely candles trying in vain to pierce the black. Beyond the windows on either side, nothing was visible—though what lay ahead was bad enough. Abandoned cars loomed out of the shadows, appearing in the beam of the headlights like obstacles in a nightmarish video game. Draugar skulked between them, reaching for the SUV while he raced by. And even setting aside the reality that he would eventually need sleep, they’d have to stop to refuel at some point. The containers in the back would get them ano
ther hundred miles or so, but not through the whole night. Which meant they’d need to somehow siphon gas from whatever vehicle they found and then fill the tank in utter darkness, hoping all the while that the draugar didn’t attack.
Stupid.
He maneuvered the SUV around an abandoned vehicle, and around another, and then veered farther over still as a draug staggered onto the road, its rotted mouth gaping.
Damn this. Damn him.
Adjusting his grip on the steering wheel, he eyed the highway. There had to be an exit at some point. A while back, they’d crossed into Nebraska—otherwise known as an abyssal stretch of damn near nothing on a good day—but there still had to be something out here. He didn’t need a metropolis. Just somewhere to park the vehicle that hopefully would be out of sight of anyone or anything that might do them harm.
Minutes ticked past. The headlights caught the edge of an off-ramp ahead. He slowed.
“What are you doing?”
He glanced over, Lindy’s voice the first thing he’d heard besides the rumble of the tires for hours. “We need sleep.”
She gave him a look full of suspicion. “We need to keep moving. Either keep going or pull over and let me drive.“
“And when we need to refuel in the dark? Or if we get stuck? We’ve been lucky the interstate hasn’t been completely blocked by cars already.”
Lindy looked away, her jaw muscles jumping.
Well, okay then.
He steered the vehicle along the ramp and then slowed at the end. A country road stretched away on either side, nothing visible beyond the beam of the headlights.
Left or right…
Scowling, he chose a direction at random and hoped it was a good call. If nothing else, there weren’t any draugar on the road.
Yet.
Drawing a steadying breath, he kept going. The road was straight as an arrow and flat like a sanded board, and beyond the headlights, only a few trees stood like surreal shapes in the darkness. The terrain hadn’t burned here, and pockets of snow covered the ground, remnants of the ridiculously unseasonable cold that had gripped the world before everything went to hell. But as the minutes crawled past, he started to feel like maybe they weren’t moving at all, if only because of how same, same, same everything appeared.