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“A shifter goes feral, we put them down.”

The words were blunt, harsh, but his tone had gentled. I squeezed my eyes closed and kept them that way. I knew this, I knew what happened to shifters that lost control of their inner animal. Ren was strong, though. I had to believe that, or I’d lose it.

Warrick’s warmth, his strength, soaked through me as if it were trying to fill the gaping hole inside me, leaving no room for the pain.

And somehow, in his arms, the anxiety and turmoil was just a little bit more bearable.

* * *

I was laying in long grass, eyes closed, the sun beating down. So warm.

Crickets chirped, while birds perched on headstones and sang their morning song.

The cemetery had always been a place of peace for me. Some would find that weird, macabre, but I didn’t care. When I lay here, it was as if I were being embraced by the women, the amazing witches, that had come before me. I always felt recharged, energized after I spent time here.

A dark cloud drifted over the sun, taking the warmth with it.

The birds and crickets quieted.

Thunder rolled across the sky.

I sat up, looking around, shivering as an icy chill lifted goose bumps on my skin.

“One by one,” a voice called, traveling to me on the breeze.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

A dark figure stepped out from the trees lining the cemetery. I didn’t know them, they shouldn’t be here, they shouldn’t be able to enter our most sacred place.

“One by one,” the dark figure said again.

I scrambled to my feet. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The figure slowly walked closer. They were small, draped in a dark cloak so large that was all I could see of them. A red fox trotted up and sat at their side.

“Ren?”

But Ren didn’t move. He looked at me with eyes that weren’t his own, eyes that didn’t know me.

A shadow hovered behind him, growing larger. “Come here,” I called, “come to me.” Ren turned and walked back into the woods, and that strange shadow drifted deeper into the cemetery. “No, please, Ren. Come back.”

“One,” the dark figure said and lifted a hand. “By one,” they finished and lifted their other hand. The billowy sleeve of their cloak slid back as they lifted them higher, and tangled in the skinny fingers of their right hand was a tumble of chestnut hair, the left was wrapped in pale gold waves.

I stumbled back, screaming, falling to my knees.

Iris and Rose stared back with dead eyes, their decapitated heads clutched in the stranger’s hands. The cloaked figure laughed and kicked something.

Another head, this one rolled to a stop beside me. Beautiful black hair, thick and wavy, covered the face, and I brushed it back with a shaking hand.

Magnolia.

I screamed again.

“Wake up,” a voice said, echoing all around me.

The dark figure dropped the heads and walked toward me, a long, bloodied knife in their hand. “One by one,” they repeated. The strange shadow followed.

“Wake up, dove,” the voice said again, against my ear this time.