As the sun crested high, and the forest lightened up, I called a halt to our walk. We’d only been at it for a couple of hours, but I was done. Since walking into a hotel—with two werewolves at my side—would be, to say the least, difficult, I opted for a tree to sit against. Alex and O’Shea curled up beside me, O’Shea surprising me with his willingness to let Alex be so close to us both. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes and drifted in and out of sleep as the day passed.

Berget’s death.

O’Shea trapped as a wolf.

Jack kidnapped.

The realities I couldn’t escape kept me from resting fully. Kept me from being able to ease the ache in my mind, body or heart. Groggily, I opened my eyes, stared at the canopy above my head. The ground was cold, but I was warm, my werewolf blanket doing a damn fine job of keeping me from the cold.

“All right boys, time to go.” I shoved Alex from my lap, or at least tried to. He lifted his head, yawned, and then let out a gust of hot wolf breath right into my face. Nice way to wake up.

I waved my hands in front of my face, stood, and headed toward Pamela and Eve once more. Though I hadn’t rested, I had come to a decision.

First, we had to get Jack away from the Child Empress. That had to come first, no matter how badly I wanted to help O’Shea. And I was going to need all the help I could get, as fast as I could. Pamela, if her arm was healed—which it should be, since witches healed almost as fast as werewolves—was going to come with me, though again we’d have to leave Eve behind. The Harpy was going to be pissed.

Second, we’d take Jack home and get O’Shea to Doran. Doran, and maybe Deanna, would be able to bring him back. I had to believe that. There was no room for any other options inside my head.

Last, I’d grieve for Berget. And maybe, finally, for Giselle too.

Step one required me to get my ass all the way to France. At the first truck stop we came on, early that evening, I stole a pickup truck. This time I went for something middle of the road, big enough to take two werewolves in the back, not nice enough to be noticed missing. I hoped.

O’Shea and Alex seemed more than content to ride in the back, winter wind blowing through their fur. Alex was howling and hopping around the back so much that he actually rocked the whole vehicle.

I cranked the side window down. “Knock it the f**k off, Alex! You’re tipping us.”

He slapped his paws over his muzzle, eyes as big as saucers. O’Shea nipped him on the shoulder and Alex lay down, flat out on his belly. Good enough.

After that, he settled down and we had no more problems.

Until we crossed into Italy.

At first, I thought it was the police behind us, dark-colored vehicles coming up fast, boxing us in on the highway.

Nope, far worse than the police.

Witches.

“Really?” I yelped as the vehicle to our left slammed into us. I fought the steering wheel to keep the truck steady. A glance in the mirror showed Alex still flat on the deck, but O’Shea was staring at the people, witches, in the cars, his gaze not wavering even when we were rammed.

I hit the gas pedal, smashing into the bumper of the car in front of us, pushing it hard. “Out of my way, prick!”

The car spun to the right, taking out the vehicle on that side of us too. Pushing the truck hard, I took us through the opening, using the other vehicles around us as blockers. Shit, the last time I’d been in a car chase had been with O’Shea too, the irony didn’t escape me. I yanked the wheel to the left, jerking the truck around a semi as it lit on fire in a burst of flames. Yes, on fire.

The witches were brassy to be throwing spells at us in the open like this. Brassy witches were the last things I needed. The rig next to us swerved, blowing its horn, the tires coming dangerously close to us. Behind us, a pickup truck like the one I was driving, came up fast. Fuck this. I hit the brakes and swerved to the left using the edge of the road as a new lane. Foot back on the gas pedal, I punched it hard, the truck shooting forward. Thank the gods someone liked speed in their big boy toy.

O’Shea and Alex scrabbled to stay upright, but only O’Shea looked concerned. Alex was grinning like a fool, barking and laughing every time he wiped out as I swerved or jerked the wheel to avoid a car.

An explosion erupted in front of us, the ground shattering, and chunks of concrete flew everywhere. A chunk landed on the hood, bounced into the back of the truck. Alex gave a yelp. I assumed he’d been smacked by the block. He started mouthing off at the top of his lungs.

“Sons of bitches, stupid witches!”

I wanted to laugh, it was his best rhyme yet, but I was too busy focusing on the road as it continued to explode, and I fought to keep the truck from doing a header into one of the magic-made craters.

Then one of the witches got crafty and blew out my back right tire. The truck wobbled and jerked to the right, slowing down way too much for my liking. I grit my teeth, knuckles white on the steering wheel. Then the other back tire blew and the truck was literally dragging its ass along the road.

If they’d wanted to, they would have just flipped the truck, but they’d held back. I was betting they were just after O’Shea and were, in their own way, trying to get me to just hand him over. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen.

I hit the brakes hard, turning the wheel sharp to the right, turning the truck sideways across the lanes in order to block the road as best I could. The slam of two large bodies hit the back of the cab. With a jerk on the handle, I shoved the door open and leapt out.

“Time to go, boys!”

They jumped out of the back of the truck, one graceful, the other, not so much. Alex’s legs seemed to go every which way, tangling him up so that he landed in a heap. O’Shea grabbed him by the scruff of the neck without missing a beat, yanking Alex out of the way of a black spell that slammed into the truck where his head had been.

I didn’t look back, just bolted down the side of the highway, the pile up from the craters, flaming rig and all the humans running around were a perfect diversion. Sure, the witches continued to lob spells at us, but they were inaccurate and sloppy. I was freaking happy that Milly wasn’t with them. Her aim was almost as good as mine.

We ran for about an hour before I dared to Track the witches as a group. From the distance between us, I could tell they hadn’t moved from the highway. Maybe they were just putting the run on us, pushing us out of their country?

The next day, and one more stolen truck later, we crossed into France. Pamela and Eve were a few hours south of us if we didn’t have any more diversions of the witchy sort.

Reaching the town by the ocean that I knew was only a short jog to where Eve and Pamela had holed up, I pulled over. We were in a no driving zone, pedestrians only apparently in this section of the town, so we would have to walk from here on out. I left the keys in the truck for someone else to take. That was the least I could do after all my thefts of vehicles over the last few days.

There was only one small problem. Alex was wearing a collar that hid him from the world of the humans. O’Shea had no such collar and it was very apparent that he was not a dog, but a big-ass black wolf.

“What the hell are we going to do?” I muttered, staring at the two werewolves in the back of the truck. Shit, this was not really something I’d thought about. This was what I got for doing things by the seat of my pants.

The best thing I could do would be to find something that I could use for a leash. Sure, people would wonder what the f**k kind of dog/wolf hybrid O’Shea was, but if he was on a leash, at least they would know he was tame. Right, a tame werewolf. Behind the seat of the truck was a long coil of rope, the edges frayed and smelling slightly of fish.

“Okay, come on, let’s go.” I motioned for them to jump out of the truck, looping the rope around O’Shea’s neck as he jumped. Not thinking for one f**king minute that there would be a problem.

My bad.

He hit the ground and spun, knocking me over. I landed on my ass, hands clenching the end of the rope. “What the hell was that about?”

His eyes traced the rope from close to where it looped around his neck, along the ground to my hand clutching the end of it. Realization dawned and I stared at him, frozen with what could happen. He was becoming a Guardian, if that was true, I couldn’t kill him, even if he attacked me. Not that I wanted to fight him, but … .

“O’Shea, we have to get through town.” I held up my hands as his lips curled back over his enormous teeth. “We have to make them, the humans, think you are safe. As soon as we get to the other side I’ll drop it, we can take it off.”

O’Shea didn’t ease up, but instead he stepped forward, his eyes no longer soft and full of recognition. I didn’t dare move, knowing that the second I tried, he’d be on me.

Alex scooted forward, putting himself between us. “Hiya Boss, Alex holds it.”

The submissive wolf scooped up the rope in his teeth and grinned at O’Shea around it.

O’Shea stilled, eyes flicking once over Alex, then back to me, then he deliberately turned his face away from me.

I slowly stood, afraid to make any fast moves. Holy shit, that could have gone bad in a f**king instant. And here again, Alex had saved my stupid sorry ass.

“Alex, come on.” He trotted to my side and I gripped his collar. O’Shea followed him, and like a bizarre parade, we cut through the last few blocks of towns. Yes, we got some double takes, some stares and a few sets of fingers pointing. But we avoided any catastrophes. For once.

As soon as we entered the edge of the trees, Alex dropped the rope and O’Shea shook himself out of it.

But neither wolf would look at me. Like I’d done something wrong in putting the rope on O’Shea. What the f**k was I going to do with Pamela? I had a witch with me, and a werewolf who wanted nothing more than to kill witches.

“You two stay here. I’ll go get Pamela and Eve.” I needed time to think, to process this situation. There was no way I could let Pamela get hurt, but I needed her with me; I already had an idea of how to get Jack away from the Child Empress, but I would need Pamela working some pretty heavy magic to make it happen. I jogged through the trees, winding my way to where the girls were. When I stepped out to where I could see the shack, Eve was the one who saw me first.