Lyra's POV
The wolf's growl vibrated through my chest like thunder.
I should run. Every instinct screamed at me to run. But my legs were jelly, my back pressed against the rough tree bark, and those ice-blue eyes pinned me in place like a butterfly in a collection.
The wolf was beautiful in the most terrifying way possible. Silver-white fur splattered with the bear's blood. Muscles rippling under its coat. Bigger than any wolf had the right to be—its shoulder was level with my chest, and I was five-foot-six.
It took another step closer.
My hands were shaking so badly I could hear my grandmother's ring—Marcus's fake engagement ring—rattling against the tree bark behind me.
"Please," I whispered, hating how my voice cracked. "Please don't."
The wolf's ear twitched. Its head tilted slightly, like it was listening. Like it understood me.
That's when I remembered what Marcus said. The creatures there are savage. They'll rip you apart.
This wolf just saved me from the bear. Why would it do that if it wanted to kill me too?
Maybe it wanted fresh meat instead of sharing with the bear.
Maybe I was about to find out exactly how much dying hurt.
The wolf moved closer, close enough that I could smell blood and forest and something wild on its fur. Close enough that if it wanted to bite my face off, it could do it in one second.
My whole body shook. Tears ran down my cheeks, hot and stupid. I didn't want to die. I didn't want Marcus to be right. I didn't want my last thought to be how completely I'd trusted someone who never deserved it.
The wolf's muzzle was inches from my face now.
Its breath was hot against my skin.
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the pain.
Instead, something wet and rough scraped across my cheek.
My eyes flew open.
The wolf had licked me.
Like a dog. Like a massive, terrifying, blood-covered dog.
"What..." I breathed.
The wolf made a sound—not quite a growl, not quite a whine. It pressed its huge head against my shoulder, nearly knocking me over. Its weight was incredible, like leaning against a warm, breathing wall.
Without thinking, my hand moved up. My fingers touched the soft fur behind its ear.
The moment my skin made contact, everything changed.
Heat exploded from my palm, shooting up my arm in waves of purple light. The wolf yelped and jumped back, its eyes wide with shock. My hand was glowing—actually glowing—with swirling violet energy that looked exactly like the portal.
"What's happening?" I gasped, staring at my hand like it belonged to someone else.
The wolf stared at me. At my glowing hand. At me again.
Then the air around it started to shimmer.
The wolf's body twisted, shrunk, reformed. Fur became skin. Paws became hands and feet. The muzzle flattened into a human face.
I stopped breathing.
Where the wolf had been, a man now crouched in the dirt.
A naked man.
A very tall, very muscular, very angry naked man with silver-white hair and those same ice-blue eyes.
"What the hell did you just do to me?" he snarled.
I couldn't answer. My brain had short-circuited somewhere between "wolf" and "hot naked guy."
He stood up—I immediately looked at the sky—and I heard him curse under his breath. A second later, something heavy and warm dropped over my shoulders. A cloak. He'd wrapped me in his cloak, which meant he was still naked, which meant I was NOT going to look down.
"Answer me, human," he growled. His voice was rough, like he wasn't used to using it. "What did you do?"
"I don't know!" My voice came out way too high. "I just touched you and there was light and—why are you a person? You were a wolf! How are you a person?"
"I'm a shifter, you idiot." He grabbed my wrist—the one that was still glowing—and held it up to examine. His grip was firm but not painful. "This mark. This is a bond mark. You bonded with me."
"I don't know what that means!"
"It means," he said slowly, like explaining to a child, "that you somehow tamed my wolf. Without permission. Without a ceremony. Without—" He stopped, his eyes going wide. "You're human. Humans can't do this. Unless..."
He dropped my wrist like it burned him.
"No," he whispered. "You can't be. The Beastcallers are extinct."
"The what?"
Before he could answer, a howl split the night. Then another. Then a dozen more, coming from every direction.
The man's head snapped up, his whole body going tense. "They smell the blood. The bear's death is calling every predator in the territory."
"Is that bad?"
He looked at me like I'd asked if fire was hot. "Can you run?"
"I—yes?"
"Then run." He grabbed my hand, yanking me away from the tree. "Because if they catch us, your bond mark won't save you from being torn apart and eaten. My pack doesn't like humans. And they really don't like uninvited humans in their territory."
"Your pack?"
"I'm the Alpha of the Northern Wolf Pack," he said, pulling me into a run through the twisted forest. Branches whipped at my face. My feet stumbled over roots I couldn't see. Behind us, the howls were getting closer. "Which means I'm the only thing standing between you and a very bloody death. So when I say run, you run. Understand?"
I understood. I understood that I'd gone from the frying pan of Marcus's betrayal into the fire of a world that wanted me dead.
The man ran fast, faster than any human should be able to run, and he was practically dragging me to keep up. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. But the sounds behind us were getting louder—snarls and crashes and the thunder of paws against earth.
"They're catching up," I gasped.
"I know."
"What do we do?"
"Pray they're more afraid of me than hungry for you."
We burst through a wall of thorny bushes into a clearing. Moonlight—or what passed for moonlight in this nightmare world—lit up the open space.
Wolves surrounded us.
Dozens of them. All massive. All with glowing eyes fixed on me like I was dinner.
The man stepped in front of me, his body a shield. Power radiated off him in waves, making the air feel thick and heavy.
"Mine," he growled at the pack. Not like he was talking to animals. Like he was giving an order. "The human is mine. Anyone who touches her answers to me."
The wolves didn't back down.
One of them—bigger than the others, with a scar across its muzzle—stepped forward. It shifted, becoming a woman with wild black hair and murder in her eyes.
"You brought a human into our territory?" she spat. "Have you lost your mind, Kael?"
So that was his name. Kael.
"I didn't bring her," Kael said coldly. "She came through a portal. And before you demand her death, you should know what she is."
He grabbed my wrist again, holding up my glowing mark for everyone to see.
The woman's eyes went wide. All the wolves started backing away, their ears flat against their heads.
"Impossible," the woman breathed.
"Not impossible," Kael said. "A Beastcaller. The first one in fifty years."
"Then we should kill her now," the woman snarled, "before she bonds with anyone else and starts a war over who owns her."
"Nobody owns me," I said, surprising myself. My voice shook but I kept talking. "I didn't ask to be here. I didn't ask for any of this. A man I trusted shoved me through a portal to die, and your Alpha saved my life. So maybe before you talk about killing me, you could try being a little less horrible."
Dead silence.
The woman stared at me like I'd grown a second head.
Then she laughed. It wasn't a nice laugh.
"I like her," the woman said to Kael. "She's got spirit. But that doesn't change the law. Humans die on sight in our territory. Even Beastcallers. Especially Beastcallers."
She shifted back into a wolf.
And lunged straight at my throat.