The vampires didn’t give them time to process it.

More poured in from every crevice, crack, and shadow on the mountainside, drawn to the blood like sharks in open water. They were, in fact, smelling blood, so the metaphor tracked. All of them were completely indifferent to the growing carpet of ash of their predecessors.

“Oh good. More,” Gavriel said as he stepped in front of her.

Steel flashed as he met the first wave head-on, blade carving brutal arcs through the narrow path.

Gavriel slipped in ash, caught himself, killed a vampire on the way back up.

“That was intentional,” he called over his shoulder.

“Completely,” Serena replied. “How’s your leg?”

“Attached.”

“Then we’re ahead of at least four vampires.”

Rook:Left.

Gavriel swung left.

Rook:Behind.

Gavriel pivoted.

Rook:Above.

Gavriel ducked. The vampire sailed over him and Serena put an arrow through its skull mid-flight.

Rook: Mate got that one.

Gavriel: Your narrating is the least helpful thing right now.

Rook: Her kill. Not ours. I want the record accurate.

Each swing was economy, each strike placed where it would kill the fastest and cost him the least because he was doing the math that both of them already knew: two people, infinite vampires, dwindling everything.

Serena continued firing arrows over his shoulder, gold-lit arrows punching through chests and skulls, detonating on impact. Ash exploded and fell like volcanic snow, coating their hair and shoulders in a fine gray powder that tasted like death and sulfur.

Gavriel spat some out of his mouth, then looked at Serena.

“Your hair is gray now.”

“You just ate vampire ash.”

“You ALSO ate ash.”

“I did not.”

“You absolutely did. I watched a piece land in your mouth mid-sentence.”

Four more vampires interrupted the conversation, which was probably for the best because neither of them was going to win it.

“How many arrows do you have left?” Gav panted, hands braced on his knees, chest heaving, blood dripping from a cut above his eyebrow that he either hadn’t noticed or had decided to ignore.

“I was worried about that too earlier, but it seems to be refilling.”

She opened it, showing him that it was full.

Gavriel stared at the quiver. Then at her. Then back at the quiver.

“Dex has a blade. You have an unlimited amount of explosion ash arrows. Fin has a bonded dragon. My turn next.”

She grinned. “What about your magic?”

“I want a THING. Dex has a thing. You have a thing. Fin has a dragon.”

“You’ll always have me,” she said. “I’m standing right here with unlimited arrows and I’m not leaving.”

Gavriel went quiet for a second.

“Fine. That counts.”

He straightened up, wiping blood off his jaw with the back of his wrist. Then glanced back at the swarm regrouping below them.

Without a word he shifted into his wolf.

Serena blinked at him.

Rook stood massive and forest-green on the volcanic stone, muscles coiled, fur bristling with the residual energy of a shift that had been fueled entirely by stubbornness and spite. He lowered his body and looked at her over his shoulder.

Gavriel:Get on. Keep your bow ready and fire behind us. We’ll cover twice the ground this way.

Serena hesitated.

Serena:Are you sure, Gav?

Riding a wolf was… unconventional. Climbing onto a wolf’s back was roughly equivalent to asking a coworker if you could sit in their lap during a meeting: technically possible, deeply uncomfortable for everyone involved, and the kind of thing people would talk about later.

Gavriel: Serena. Get on my goddamn wolf. His feelings are hurt now.

Serena:Okay. Tell me if I hurt you.

Rook huffed impatiently.

She grabbed a fistful of green fur then froze like she had been electrocuted.

His wolf went still at the same moment.

Every nerve ending in her body fired simultaneously, and for one disorienting second, she felt something through the contact that she absolutely should have been incapable of feeling.

She shook her head once. Twice. Then swung herself up, ignoring the sparks shooting through her body. The sparks that were getting louder by the second. It started at her hands and detonated outward, a sharp, crackling current that raced down her arms, through her ribs, into her chest like a live wire had been pressed against her spine.

Gavriel wasn’t her mate and she was wearing a necklace that blocked physical sensations from a mate. Both things made what she was feeling impossible.

This was her losing her mind due to vampire ash and dehydration.

Gavriel. Was. Her. Friend.

She kept reminding herself of that. Whatever was happening with her body was a coincidence. A byproduct of exhaustion, adrenaline, six hours of combat, and the lingering magical residue of two forced shifts. That was all. If she said it enough times, it would be true.

She was going to say it enough times.

Rook launched forward.

The acceleration slammed Serena backward, her thighs clamping tight against his ribs, one hand fisted in his fur and the other reaching for an arrow as the mountain blurred around them. Wind roared past her ears. Stone became a gray streak beneath his paws. Every stride ate ten feet of mountainside, every leap cleared gaps that would have taken her five minutes to navigate on foot.

Serena: I didn’t know Gammas could go this fast. Is this Alpha speed?

Gavriel: Huh. I hadn’t noticed.

He had, in fact, very much noticed.

Serena frowned, her gaze catching on something dark matting the fur along Rook’s left shoulder. The blood looked almost black against the green, thick and wet and spreading in a way that looked wrong. Infected almost.

Serena: Your wolf’s shoulder is bleeding.

Gavriel: My wolf is fine.

Serena: Good point. We both look like shit.

Gavriel: Did you just say shit?

Serena: Shut up.

Gavriel: I’m so proud. Also, is it true you told Bellatrix to fuck off?

Serena killed a vampire before answering.

Serena: Yes.

Gavriel: I’m sad I missed it.