Page 57 of Veil of Blood and Bone

Crouching, I cut across the street, pulled by some impetus. Forest reacts with a flurry and knocks the troll on its ass. The reverberation rattles down the road, met with another boisterous round of honking horns from the pileup.

A bookcase inside the store rocks.

“Little girl, run.” I send the compulsion out.

Audra glances up with her hammer poised and a single nail left between the line of her lips. Then she shakes it off and continues to beat the wood into place. The blockade is flimsy at best and won’t help her should Kari decide to up the attack.

I push the compulsion harder, and the girl straightens, unsteady on her treacherous legs.

She misses the bookshelf flying off its perch, no longer anchored. She never sees it tip toward her, not until the dusty corner hits her head.

I wince at the crack of wood against bone, and she crumples, a delicate mass of hair and fabric, blood leaching from the break in her skin.

Shit.

Helene and Forest are too concerned with the troll to notice Audra. They won’t get to her in time. Already her pulse has slowed to a sluggish and irregular beat. Do something.

I glance at Helene, fangs lowered, insides tight. Step in. If I do, I might ruin everything.

The wind howls, and the troll goes down a second time, its legs twitching.

“Damn it.” Spine locked, I cut toward the store.

Her forehead is split open and leaking crimson down her cheek.

Helene will not survive as long without her. It’s a given. I’ve seen it happen. And there’s no one around to heal the girl, not as quickly as she needs to be healed. There’s only me.

She needs my blood.

Disaster. The gods are laughing.

My dead heart lurches once. Then again, painfully alive in Helene’s presence.

I punch the board blocking the doorway until it cracks into pieces. Iron nails scatter away.

The delicious tang of blood is another song on the wind, this one more enticing than Kari’s. My mouth waters, and I bite down on my tongue, fangs aching, control fraying.

Audra’s life essence hits the air, and hunger tears through me so violently my vision blurs at the edges.

“Come on, girl,” I growl and crouch beside her. “Let’s save your life.”

I gather her across my lap and tear open my wrist, skin parting easily.

“What the hell is...Oh, shit, get away from her! Who are—Audra!” Panicked and dark eyed, Helene slams her palms to my shoulders, movements jerky and weak once she notices the wound.

Not now. Her nearness⁠—

“The bookshelf,” I manage. “It fell on her.”

Helene is pale-faced, her lips cracked. She meets my stare, and I stifle a groan. Forest skulks behind us, dealing with the aftermath of the dead troll. “Then we need to get her to a doctor!”

I didn’t want to throw myself into her life so soon, because this was not how I wanted to meet her for the first time in this life.

Angling over the sister, using my back to cut the wind, I grab her with both hands and haul her closer, tilting my wrist to her mouth.

Helene reaches for the girl at the same time, until we’re each gripping an arm.

I snarl at her. “If you want my help, you’ll let go.”