The One and Only Crystal Druid

Book 1: The Guild Codex: Unveiled

by Annette Marie

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Dragons & Mythical Creatures; Humorous Fantasy; New Adult & College; Urban Fantasy; urban fantasy; enemies to lovers; fae; druids; mythology; irish mythology; urban fantasy romance; adventure fantasy; scarred hero heroine; unconventional heroine

Synopsis

I'm not your average girl.



My best friend is my switchblade. My favorite hobby is using it on the cruel, the abusive, and anyone who gets on my bad side. I'm a convicted murderer with a chip on my shoulder and a dangerous lack of restraint.



And then there's Zak.



His rap sheet makes mine look tame. The bounty on his head is worth more money than I'll ever make, and the deadly fae that shadow his every step wield more power than I'll ever know.



He's the Crystal Druid, and his first mistake was setting foot on my turf. His second was saving my life.



And his final mistake will be failing to realize that however dark, however ruthless, however broken he is . . .



I'm worse.

Release date: September 24, 2021

Publisher: Dark Owl Fantasy Inc.

Print pages: 330

Sample

Chapter 1

As cold rain pattered on my head, I studied the boy.

“Boy” wasn’t the right word for someone who emanated such a menacing, skin-prickling intensity. For someone with a presence that couldn’t be ignored, the air around him suffused with an indefinable threat. He was a nameless enigma unlike anyone I’d ever seen before.

But with several more years before “man” could describe him, “boy” was the best label I had.

Broken glass crunched under my boots as I ventured into the narrow gap between buildings, darkness swallowing the orange glow of nearby streetlights. Gang tags and graffiti marked the bricks on either side of me as I cautiously approached.

The boy leaned against the wall in a recessed doorway, a dim security light casting his face into shadow. I couldn’t make out his eyes, but I could feel his gaze.

I stopped in front of his alcove, frigid droplets dripping off my chin. A shiver ran down my spine all the way to my toes as a soft stillness enveloped me—an ominous moment of warning I couldn’t interpret.

I should have stayed out in the rain.

Stepping into the doorway, I pressed my back against the wall opposite him and swiped my sopping bangs off my forehead. The boy didn’t speak, merely observed my presence like I was an unexpected piece of furniture in a familiar room.

We sized each other up. He wore a leather jacket, its hood deep. Sturdy pants. Heavy boots similar to mine. His broad shoulders suggested that, even at six feet tall, he hadn’t reached his full height. Stark shadows clung to his face, aging him, but his jaw hadn’t hardened yet.

Around my age, I decided. Fifteen or sixteen.

His gaze roved over me, then he lifted his hand toward his mouth, something small pinched between his fingers. A red spot glowed as he drew on a blunt. His shoulders relaxed as he exhaled hazy smoke.

I wrinkled my nose, then hesitated. A cautious, confused sniff as I tried to identify the unfamiliar scent. It had a medicinal tang I hadn’t expected.

Silently, he offered the blunt.

I reassessed his features. The dark ring under his lower eyelid: a fading black eye. The shadow on his right cheek: a half-healed bruise. The mark on the back of his hand: an angry red burn. The split in his lower lip … almost identical to the throbbing split in mine.

Without deciding to, I reached out. My fingers brushed his as I took the roll of brown paper. I put it between my lips—where his lips had been moments before—and inhaled its citrus-scented smoke, relieved when I didn’t burst into a coughing fit.

As the rain gradually lessened and its noisy patter diminished, we passed the blunt back and forth, saying nothing. What was there to say? We weren’t here because we wanted to be. If we could’ve been somewhere else, we’d already be gone.

In the new quiet, other sounds reached my ears: the low rumble of voices leaking from the building. A deep male tone called out, accompanied by a burst of masculine laughter. A higher-pitched female voice answered, sharp with cutting amusement, and more laughter followed.

The boy’s gaze drifted to the door. I wondered which voice went with the fist that had bruised his face and split his lip.

I wondered what my face looked like to him.

And I wondered why it mattered.

I passed the stub of his blunt back to him. Another roar of laughter from the other side of the door scraped my ears.

“Do you ever think about just killing them?”

The question was out of my mouth before I knew I was speaking. The boy’s gaze turned to mine. No confusion. No shock. He knew exactly what I meant.

He drew on the blunt, and a swirl of smoke accompanied his reply. “All the time.”

His low voice had a raspy edge that I liked. A slight accent tinged it, but I couldn’t pin it down from a few words.

An odd, shivery lightness swept up my torso. “Have you ever tried?”

“No.” Eyes locked on mine, he dropped the stub and ground it into the pavement. “Not yet.”

 

Chapter 2

The message on my phone glowed cheerily.

 

The Rose Moon is tomorrow. Ritual starts at noon. Don’t be late!

 

I reread it, knowing better than to interpret its tone as cheery. Laney was never cheery with me. “Contemptuous,” often. “Suspicious,” regularly. “Outright hostile,” at least once a month. But cheerful? Never.

To be honest, I was more comfortable with contempt than cheer.

Leaning back in my chair, I dropped my phone on the counter beside the microscope. The snow-white cat lounging on the microscope’s other side cracked one blue eye open, peered at me, then closed it again. I pinched the bridge of my nose until it hurt, letting the pain clear the fog from my head.

The Rose Moon. No one else considered the pinkish moon of early summer to be bad luck, but it had haunted me my entire life. I’d been born on a Rose Moon, and my mother had even named me after it—Saber Rose—ensuring it would haunt me forever.

A hint of leafy, citrus smoke teased my nose, leaking from my broken memories of a long-ago Rose Moon. I squinted, my eyes losing focus as I chased the dim flashes of a dark alley, cold rain, and a faceless figure in a hooded jacket. As my fractured recollection disintegrated into blank nothingness, a suffocating wave of bitter, raging despair rose in its place, clogging my throat until I could scarcely breathe.

My mind might be incapable of recalling that time of my life, but my heart knew what had broken me.

Most days, I was glad I couldn’t remember.

Pushing all thoughts of the past away, I positioned my face in front of the microscope’s eyepiece and turned the fine focus knob.

“Saber!”

The door beside me flew open and I almost put the microscope through my eye socket.

“What?” I snarled.

Kaitlynn hung in the doorway, her green scrubs stained with something wet and her mouth slack at my aggressive response.

“Sorry.” My voice rose half an octave as I smiled. “You startled me. What’s up?”

Blinking, she recovered her wits. “Oh, actually, I’m just—Dr. Lloyd’s last appointment peed everywhere and cleanup took forever, and I have a thing planned tonight. I haven’t had time to feed the cats, but I don’t want to be late, so I was hoping … if possible …?”

She trailed off, waiting for me to volunteer. The white cat beside me stared unblinkingly at her, but she didn’t react to the animal in the lab room—nor did she comment on his unearthly eyes, pale blue and crystalline with no visible pupils. She didn’t see him at all.

“Sure, I’d be happy to help out!” I replied brightly.

The cat flicked his tail in annoyance.

Beaming, Kaitlynn gushed, “Thanks. I owe you one. Coffee tomorrow?”

“I’m off tomorrow.”

“Oh, then for your next shift?”

“Sounds good!”

She bounced out, swinging the door shut, and my smile dropped.

Utterly authentic. A breathtaking performance.

I shot the cat an irritated look before returning to the microscope. I examined the skin scraping under the lens, identifying the cigar-shaped bodies of demodex mites, and made a note on the requisition beside me. I had two more samples to check—a urinalysis and a white blood cell count—but pushed away from the table. I’d feed the animals first, then finish my lab work.

The snow-white feline sprawled on the counter watched me leave with ten times the judgmental disdain of any mortal cat.

Cutting through the large treatment room, I skirted an exam table, the pervasive odor of disinfectant stinging my sinuses. The steady yowling of a homesick cat leaked through the door ahead.

“Kaitlynn, let’s go!”

With thudding steps, Kaitlynn flew out from the hall to the staff room and shot past without noticing me. She disappeared behind the drug cabinet that blocked my view of the back exit.

“I’m here,” she panted. “Just give me a second to tie my shoes.”

Her impatient companion huffed. “Did you feed the cats?”

“No, I asked Saber to do it.”

“Saber?” The disgruntled repetition of my name came from a third voice. “Ugh.”

“What’s ‘ugh’?” Kaitlynn asked.

“Why would you ask her?” Though she’d lowered her voice, I still recognized the high-pitched tones of Nicolette, another vet tech. “Don’t you get a weird vibe from her?”

“What do you mean? She’s super nice.”

“Yeah,” the third woman chimed in. “She’s really nice! Cut her some slack, Nicolette.”

The back door thumped shut. I stood in front of the cat room, my reflection in the door’s small window gazing back at me. My straight black hair hung to my elbows, thick bangs cut in a severe line at my eyebrows. A tan warmed my fair skin enough that I didn’t look like a corpse, and a faint dusting of freckles covered my nose. My cheekbones stood out sharply, my lips turned down slightly at the corners. Classic resting bitchface.

My blue-gray eyes stared, intense and eerily piercing even to me. A soldier’s thousand-yard stare.

I opened the door. Feline chatter erupted at my arrival, and I reviewed the feeding instructions for the first cat, a long-haired Himalayan.

People like it when others do things for them. They don’t respect you for it, but they like you, and that was what I needed. I was nice. The nice girl. Nothing more, nothing less.

I’d learned how to be the nice girl while studying to become a vet tech, and I’d perfected it in my four years working at this clinic. The hard lesson that being liked was more important than being honest, genuine, or respected had come much earlier in my life.

Being liked was a survival technique, which was why I would keep doing favors for my coworkers, even when I’d rather tell them to shove it.

I couldn’t let anyone realize I wasn’t a nice girl at all.

* * *

The evening sun cast beautiful golden light over the narrow road as I drove my pickup truck east out of Coquitlam. I’d left the suburbs behind, and dense, mature trees leaned over the left side of the road, cutting off my view of the sprawling mountain slopes beyond them. On my right, farmland stretched toward the unseen banks of Pitt River.

Quiet tranquility stole over me. The summit to the north was part of a provincial park, and beyond it was the endless expanse of the Coast Mountains. The dense metropolis of Vancouver was less than an hour’s drive west, far enough that its hectic bustle didn’t disturb my home territory.

The road curved northeast, and as my truck rolled around the bend, a large sign beckoned me:

 

Hearts & Hooves Animal Rescue

 

I turned left onto the dirt driveway. My truck’s tires rumbled over a metal cattle guard, and I accelerated again, zooming past a long, fenced pasture carpeted in grass. A mixture of hoofed animals—horses, ponies, donkeys, goats, sheep, alpacas, and a handful of cows—lifted their heads to watch my vehicle pass, then returned to their lazy grazing.

Ahead, a dense stand of trees concealed the farmstead. As I drove past the screening foliage and through an open gate, a small house appeared on my left. All the farm’s buildings— stable, machinery shed, storage, small-animal enclosures, greenhouse, garden, and more—faced the wide gravel yard. A mixed fruit orchard formed neat rows of trees beyond the greenhouse.

Parking in front of the house beside a rusting first-generation Ford Ranger with pale blue paint, I swung my door open and climbed out. As I turned to close the door, the white cat jumped out after me. He gave me an unreadable look with his ethereal blue eyes, then sauntered off with his tail in the air.

I shut the door, my gaze drifting toward the sunlit forests blanketing the mountain north of the farm, but a brusque greeting interrupted my half-formed thought about going for a hike.

“Saber!” Dominique appeared in the large open doorway of the sprawling stable and jogged across the gravel yard toward me. Several inches shorter and much curvier than my five-foot-nine frame, she didn’t look like someone who regularly lifted fifty-pound hay bales. Her tightly curled black locks were cut short, and her bold red glasses stood out against her golden umber skin.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she said, halting beside me. “The two new geldings are worse than we expected. The vet is coming tomorrow, but can you take a look?”

“Of course,” I said quickly.

“The big gray is lame,” she told me as we strode toward the stable. “He’s got the worst case of thrush I’ve ever seen. The smaller one is moving okay, but he’s underweight and he was quidding half his hay. I suspect serious dental problems.”

“I won’t be much help with that.” Hooves, I could do, but not teeth. “Are these Harvey Whitby’s horses?”

“Yes,” Dominique growled. “He never should’ve bought horses for his spoiled-ass daughters. Those girls have never mucked a stall in their lives, so of course they wouldn’t know or care about how to keep a horse healthy. But that little prick would rather toss the horses in a field and forget about them than let me take them.”

Giving up animals—even ones he’d never wanted—to a rescue organization would be tantamount to admitting he made a mistake. And Harvey Whitby didn’t make mistakes.

The crunch of our steps changed to the thud of boots on concrete. Hearts & Hooves Animal Rescue wasn’t a high-end facility by any stretch—most of the buildings had needed a fresh coat of paint for decades—but Dominique had poured everything she had into a complete renovation of the stable eight years ago.

On our left, a row of spacious stalls stretched to the back of the building, each one opening into an outdoor turnout twice as large. On the left, windows lined a huge indoor arena, filling the stable’s interior with sunlight.

“At least you were able to get them at the auction,” I murmured.

“For twice what I should’ve paid. The meat buyers drove up the price on me again.” She smirked without humor. “I returned the favor.”

Ears pricked curiously, the stabled horses stuck their heads through the V-shaped openings in their stall doors to watch us stride past.

I frowned. “You said two horses. Didn’t Whitby have three?”

Dominique’s shoulders twitched angrily. “I was expecting three at the auction, but the third one wasn’t there.”

“So Whitby kept it?”

“He must’ve, but I can’t imagine why.”

At the far end of the stable, two unfamiliar horses stood in the open-front tack stalls, cross-tied between two posts.

Greta, co-owner of the rescue, glanced over as we joined her. Taller than me, rail-thin, and with a deeply tanned complexion from hours spent in the sun, she was different from Dominique in every way except for her uncompromising dedication to the animals they cared for.

She stood next to a light dappled gray, cooing softly to him as she rubbed his forehead. At over seventeen hands, he was on the large side for leisure riding and had at least a bit of draft horse in him—Percheron, I was guessing, judging by his color, thick build, and sturdy legs. The smaller brown was a quarter horse through and through, his ears rotating nervously as he monitored the unfamiliar surroundings.

I assessed the equines on my approach: stiff postures, bony shoulders, protruding ribs, dull eyes. By the time I stood in front of them, a tight feeling had spread through my chest. Not anxiety, distress, or anger, but something cold and brittle. Something hard and sharp. Something tinged red and pulsing like a living thing inside me.

Sweeping into the tack room, I pulled my farrier kit out from beneath the table and tied the leather apron around my waist, its thick panels covering my legs down to my shins. I wasn’t a vet—I was a tech, an animal nurse—and I wasn’t a fully-fledged farrier either. I was still an apprentice, but I knew enough to be useful.

I loaded tools into my apron’s pocket and grabbed my kit. Treating the horses, nursing them back to health, and finding them loving new homes would comfort Dominique and Greta. But that wasn’t enough for me.

Neglect. Abuse. Callous mistreatment. Harvey Whitby didn’t care about the suffering he’d caused. No one would punish him. No one would disburse consequences commensurate for his crimes against innocent animals.

The red-hazed shards in my chest ground against my lungs as I set my kit down and approached the big gray with gentle hands and soft murmurs.

No one except me.

 

Chapter 3

Moths fluttered around the stable’s fluorescent lights as I hummed to the big gray, now named Whicker. Stroking his shoulder, I slid my hand down his front leg to his fetlock, squeezing lightly, and pulled his foot up. Bright blue goop stained the underside of his hoof, packed into the crevices in his frog and sole where the thrush infection had rotted away the hard tissue. The foul odor of decomposition lingered.

I’d spent the evening scraping, clipping, and filing each hoof, all riddled with infection. I’d scrubbed them with an antiseptic wash, then mixed up the blue copper sulfate paste.

It would take weeks of treatment to heal the damage that basic care could have prevented.

I checked his other hooves, ensuring the paste still generously coated his soles, then grabbed a soft body brush and ran it over his neck and back. He was already clean—Dominique and Greta had pampered both horses earlier—but grooming was comforting. As I sang softly and brushed his side, he slanted his ears back, eyes half closed.

After a few minutes, I moved from his stall to the neighboring one, occupied by the brown quarter horse. His new name was Whinny, and his teeth were so bad he hadn’t been eating properly for months. I checked that he’d finished the warm mash Greta had made him, brushed him for a few minutes, then slipped out of his stall.

I leaned on the stall door, watching Whinny nose at the empty feeder. The first meal he’d eaten without significant pain in who knew how long. He wanted more.

The sharp edges in my chest shifted restlessly, scraping my lungs.

It was time for Farmer Whitby’s consequences.

I slid my hand into my left pocket, checking for the small fabric case I’d retrieved earlier, then reached for the other pocket and curled my fingers around a comforting aluminum handle. My dark hair was stuffed under a ball cap, and I’d changed into a black jacket, black pants, and steel-toed boots before checking on Whicker and Whinny.

Slipping outside, I locked the stable door. Dark, quiet stillness draped the farm. It was after midnight, and across the yard, the house windows were dark. Low on the horizon, the full moon cast its rosy glow across the pastures.

I took a step, then paused. A few yards away, an owl was perched on a fence post, his feathers a white so pure and unnatural they had the faint blue tinge of fresh snow. He watched me with large, pupilless azure eyes set in a great horned owl’s vaguely angry face.

“If you’re going for incognito,” I told him, “you’ve failed spectacularly.”

I am not incognito, dove. The owl spread his wings to their full span. I am majestic. It’s an appropriate look for a night with such a spectacular moon.

“Are you coming with me?”

Would I miss such a valorous campaign?

Huffing, I crossed the yard to the equipment shed, which I’d left unlocked. A few minutes later, I was pushing a quad along the long gravel drive. The owl led the way, gliding on silent wings.

Only after I’d pushed the quad across the cattle guard and onto the public road did I climb on and start the engine. It rumbled to life.

The owl landed on a fence post. A faint shimmer of blue light washed over him, and when it had faded, a ferret as eerily white as the owl scurried down the wood. He darted across the road, hopped onto my knee, and clambered up my sleeve to tuck himself against the back of my neck.

I gunned the engine and the quad zoomed down the road. The wind whipped at my face, trying to steal my ball cap.

Is the coven doing a ritual tomorrow? The question sounded in my head, the crisp male tenor unhampered by the noise of the road or wind.

Yes, I answered silently, directing my thought at the ferret on my shoulder.

Soft fur brushed my neck, followed by the prick of tiny claws as he nestled under the collar of my jacket. May I devour Deanne’s familiar this time?

No, Ríkr, you may not.

Her oversized dragonfly called me a declawed albino rat. I will show her my claws—and the inside of my stomach.

I would’ve been amused if he hadn’t been serious. If my familiar eats another witch’s familiar, I’ll be kicked out of the coven.

A shame that would be, dove. I know you hold those sanctimonious daisies in the highest regard.

I turned onto a dirt road, the black expanse of farmland bordering both sides. You know why I can’t leave.

Pulling over beside a barbed wire fence, I shut off the engine. Using a post for leverage, I hopped the barbed wire and landed in a field of recently cut plants. If only Farmer Whitby hadn’t completed his first harvest yet, I could’ve ruined his year in an even bigger way.

Ríkr rode on my shoulder as I marched across the uneven ground toward the farmstead, approaching from the back. Navigating by moonlight, I jumped another fence and slipped between two outbuildings. Massive structures surrounded an expansive yard, the gravel churned by the passage of large equipment. My mouth quirked at the sight of the elegant timber farmhouse, several windows lit despite the late hour.

I circled behind the buildings to the machinery shed—though “shed” was misleading. It was more like a warehouse. Keeping to the shadows, I found the door and tried the handle. Locked.

The farmhouse lights felt hot against my back as I pulled the small case from my pocket and flipped it open. Selecting a tiny torsion wrench and a pick, I stuck them into the lock.

Behind me, the warm glow brightened. I glanced over my shoulder. Another window had turned luminescent.

“Watch the house, Ríkr,” I whispered as I angled the pick and felt a pin move.

Watching, he replied swiftly.

Ten seconds. Fifteen. More pins shifted.

Door is opening!

I turned the wrench and the bolt clacked. As light flooded the yard, I pushed the shed door open, slid inside, and swung it shut. A quick twist of the bolt and the door was locked again.

The pitch-black interior stank of oil, diesel fuel, and dead plants. I stood silently, listening. Nothing.

“A little light, Ríkr?” I murmured, pocketing my pick.

The white ferret hopped onto my ball cap, and soft blue light radiated off him, illuminating the shed’s interior.

My gaze skimmed across a dirt-splattered backhoe and a massive tractor before landing on the largest machine—a green monstrosity with a boxy body, a glass-enclosed cab six feet above the ground, and a wide, spiked rotary header attached to the front.

A forage harvester, relatively new and worth over half a million dollars.

Humming to myself, I strolled past the harvester to the wall where a hose was coiled. I grabbed the end and pulled it across the floor until I stood beside the harvester’s front tire, as tall as me with thick treads.

Beside the tire was the fat blue cap for the fuel tank. I reached up. With a few twists, it came free.

“One more word for signal token,” I sang as I snaked the hose into the tank, diesel fumes wafting out. “Whistle out the marchin’ tune.”

I returned to the spigot in the wall and twisted the tap. The hose stiffened with water pressure and an echoing splash erupted from the fuel tank.

“With your pike upon your shoulder”—I stepped over to the work bench and selected a hacksaw from the assorted tools—“by the rising of the moon.”

At the front of the harvester, a thick bundle of hydraulic lines snaked from the header to the body. As my quiet voice lilted with the Irish folk tune, I set the hacksaw against the first line.

The saw dragged across the line. Fluid spilled down, glopping onto the concrete floor. Still singing, I cut the next line, working my way through the bundle until all the lines were severed. Spotting a few smaller hoses, I cut those too.

With a noisy gurgle, the fuel tank overflowed, water-tainted diesel gushing down the side of the harvester.

“Death to every foe and traitor! Whistle out the marching tune.” I crossed to the spigot and turned off the water. “And hurrah, me boys, for freedom—”

Light flooded the building’s interior.

I dropped into a crouch beside the tool bench, hacksaw in hand and Ríkr clinging to my hat, his faint glow extinguished. Male voices echoed off the walls.

“This is ridiculous, Harvey,” a brusque voice complained as the door banged against the wall. “If the wretched beast ran off, just let it go.”

“And have some helpful hiker spot it?” a gruff, angry voice shot back.

Two older men had entered the cavernous building, one stocky with a white beard, and the other tall and bald. As they strode across the floor, I slipped silently along the bench until I could duck behind the harvester. The water hose was still hanging from the harvester’s fuel tank, but the tractor blocked the men’s view.

“Bill was supposed to dump it at an auction in Alberta,” the shorter man—Whitby—growled as he headed toward a metal cabinet in the corner. “Now the damn thing is loose and I have to deal with it.”

“Why didn’t you just sell it with the other two?”

“And let everyone see it at the auction? That persistent bitch at the rescue farm had already been hounding me for months.” A keychain rattled, followed by the metallic sound of a lock. “Not my fault the beast sickened like that. Women like her should mind their own business.”

I breathed silently through my nose, my grip on the hacksaw too tight. Ríkr’s slight weight on my hat shifted.

“Bill texted me ten minutes ago,” Whitby continued. “He spotted it north of Quarry Road. It’s all wilderness up there.”

A clatter reverberated through the shed. Crouching, I peered under the harvester. Whitby had opened the cabinet, revealing a small collection of long-barreled firearms. A gun locker.

Whitby handed his companion a rifle, then checked the time on his wristwatch, the gold band glinting. “It’s one a.m. No one will be out. We can lead the beast into the woods, away from the trails, and get rid of it once and for all. It’ll be months before anyone stumbles over the corpse.”

The taller man grimaced at his weapon. “Fine.”

Whitby slammed the locker shut, a second gun in his hands. Both men strode to the door, turning off the lights and locking the bolt on their way out.

“And hurrah, me boys, for freedom,” I crooned under my breath, completing the lyrics they’d interrupted. “’Tis the rising of the moon.”

Sweeping to the exit, I unbolted the lock and cracked the door open just as a vehicle rumbled to life. A truck peeled out of the yard, spitting gravel behind it. Whitby cared more about his reputation than a horse’s life—and he planned to destroy the evidence of his careless neglect before it caused him any more problems.

I wouldn’t let that happen.

As the truck’s taillights sped away, I broke into a sprint, keeping to the shadows. North of Quarry Road, he’d said. Quarry Road was the next—and last—road to the north. Beyond it was Mount Burke, the same sprawling summit that loomed over Hearts & Hooves Rescue. Chances were the horse wasn’t that far from here.

Going back for my quad would take too long, so I would have to rely on my own two legs if I wanted any chance of stopping Whitby before he found the horse. I hoped I wouldn’t have to run ten miles.

Ríkr, I called silently.

He sprang off my head, his body glowing. Wings swept out as his shape changed. In the form of a white crow, he zoomed ahead, following the truck. I steadied my pace and controlled my breathing as I jogged onto the gravel drive.

By the time I reached Quarry Road, my calves were burning, but I ignored the feeling. I worked my body all day, every day. My job at the vet clinic wasn’t easy, the rescue was even more demanding, and farriery was outright punishing. During my limited free time, I relaxed by hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding.

I hated sitting still.

Breathing deep and steady, I scanned the treetops for Ríkr’s distant form. He’d make sure that, should the farmers find the horse before I caught up, they wouldn’t get a chance to shoot it. He might be a small, impertinent, and slightly bloodthirsty shapeshifter with little magic, but he was still a fae. And even smallfae could be dangerous.

The road grew steeper, and as trees overtook the fields, the low-hanging moon disappeared from view. Darkness closed in, the forest crowding the road, towering trees leaning over the ditches. My jog slowed, my breath loud in my ears.

I jolted to a stop.

My lungs heaved as I tried to breathe as quietly as possible. The trees rustled softly in the cool breeze. No other sound—then I heard it.

The distant clop of hooves against asphalt.

I whirled around and squinted down the dark road. Was it Whitby’s escaped horse? My skin prickled. Unexpected fear skittered across my nerve endings, and my hand dove into my pocket. I pulled out my switchblade, thumb on the trigger, and shuffled sideways toward the ditch.

Clack-clack-clack. A quick trot. Growing louder. Coming closer.

I slid into the ditch and crouched in the long grass. Trepidation, unfamiliar and unwelcome, simmered in my gut. Jaw tight, I scrutinized the dark road and even darker trees. The breeze had died, and all was silent except for the clack of hooves growing ever louder.

Gooseflesh pricked my arms, and I didn’t like the hysterical edge of panic creeping into my thoughts. Why was I afraid? My reaction made no sense.

The sound of hooves was clear now. I should’ve been able to see the horse.

Unless it wasn’t a normal horse.

My eyes widened at the thought, then narrowed. I let my vision relax. The road blurred, and a ghostly white mist washed over the scene as I focused on the ethereal realm instead of the mundane world.

Within the white mist, a cloud of darkness.

Hooves struck the road like gunshots as a beastly horse trotted toward me. It was the size of a draft horse but with a lean build, its obsidian mane floating eerily as shadows eddied around it. Astride its back, a rider moved as one with its mount, black fabric draping his form.

I could almost hear Death calling my name as the rider drew nearer.

Terror ricocheted through me, and I shrank into the long grass like a hunted rodent. I was well hidden, but in another dozen yards, the rider would be close enough to spot me from his high vantage point.

The horse clopped up the road, ten yards away. My switchblade’s handle dug into my palm as I squeezed it. Five yards away.

Three.

Two.

Bang!

The distant gunshot rang through the night, and the ethereal steed threw its head up, ears perked. Not fear but focus. The cloud of darkness around it writhed.

The horse launched across the road—away from me. It leaped the far ditch in an easy bound, and I flinched as it landed, expecting a cacophony of snapping branches as its massive weight met the dense underbrush.

It charged into the dark woods without a sound, vanishing from sight.

I sucked in a breath and unclenched my fingers.

Whatever the hell that horse and rider were, I never wanted to cross paths with them again.