Page 5 of Shifter Situations

Four fae were closing in on us, and still, he wouldn’t leave me. They weren’t bounty hunters, but they’d take my head back to the winter realm, regardless. The price on me was too large a sum to ignore.

I couldn’t drag him down with me.

He’d already stolen the car he was in, killed the driver, and ran over a fifth fae. His knuckles were split but healing. The tip of a blade was embedded in my thigh, and I desperately needed to dig it out before I had to cut myself open again to retrieve it.

There was blood everywhere.

We were covered in it, and so was the car he was in.

I wouldn’t let him come with me when I checked up on the new winters in the town over. He followed me anyway; consequences be damned.

I knew those fae were bad news.

I dove through the passenger window as Novak sped away, slamming his hands on the steering wheel of the sedan. The front of his body was nothing but drying blood; his facial features barely distinguishable under the crimson layer.

He laughed humorlessly as he turned to glare at me. “What were you thinking? They were going to kill you.”

“They will kill me,” I stated matter-of-factly. “And now they’re going to try to kill you too. You shouldn’t have followed me, Novak.”

“Are you fucking serious?” he shouted, pulling onto the interstate without looking for oncoming traffic. “I’ve killed every fae that’s been too close for comfort since you told me why you ran.”

“What? Why?” But what I really wanted to know was, “How many has she sent?”

“I’ve lost count. Between abductions and murders… I couldn’t even guess at this point.”

He rolled his yes as I searched the car for something to rip open the healing wound on my thigh. There was nothing sharp to be found. I was ready to wait until we got home when he reached over, slicing my skin with a small dagger.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

“You know the memories that you’ve been erasing for me aren’t meals gone wrong, right? I don’t have any issues with feeding, Vaughn. I have problems with you being hunted like some kind of sick game.

“Every time I hear of a new winter fae getting close, I go to check them out. I haven’t been too great at covering my tracks. Blaire’s had to clean up my mess on multiple occasions.”

I sighed, feeling thankful but annoyed. “You can’t keep doing this, Novak. Let me handle the fae.”

“Yes, I fucking can,” he shot back, swerving into the right lane to take a last-minute exit.

“Why would you, though? Why keep risking yourself? You’ve painted a target on your back when you could have stayed safe.”

He parked the boosted sedan behind a closed gas station and glowered out the windshield. After several silent minutes passed us by, he huffed in aggravation.

“Not everyone is out to get you, Vaughn. Some of us just like being around you.”

I understood what he was saying, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept that as the truth.

The headlights of a car lit up the darkness around us, and blue lights began flashing before I could explain anything to him.

Novak pinched his lips together as he pulled at his hair in panic. “Go, Vaughn. You need to mist out before he sees you. You’ll be a sitting duck in a jail cell.”

I wasn’t going to leave him, but I also knew he was right. Indecision made me freeze as I listened to the crunching of loose rock between concrete and heavy boots.

Novak snapped quietly, “Go! Call Blaire. I’ll see you both in a few days.”

I grinned at him as I placed my hand on his shoulder, misting us to the side of a nearby dumpster. When we were corporeal once more, I doused the car’s interior in a torrential wave of water strong enough to wash away any evidence.

Hopefully, neither of us would be implicated in this crime.

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