the changeform, the thing that has a line right down into the heart of a hunting beast.
It didn’t scare me. I had so much else to be scared of nowadays that wulfen were looking pretty damn safe. Plus, I trusted them.
I trusted them all.
Shanks punched Dibs on the shoulder, but very lightly. “You’ve already wasted half of it, Dibsie. Get going.”
Dibs stood there for a few seconds. A slow, very sweet grin lit up his entire face, and I blinked. In that one second, shy, blushing Dibs looked . . . well, almost handsome.
Then he turned on his heel and was gone, skirting the edge of the pool and vanishing into leafshade and sunshine. His hair blazed for a moment, but then branches moved to hide that gleam.
Shanks glanced at me. The orange in his irises fought with the fluid leaf-shadows. “Keep up, Dru-girl.”
I snorted. “You haven’t lost me yet, Robert .” It was what Christophe called him, just like he called Dibs Samuel all the time.
It was Shanks’s turn to make a little dismissive noise. He folded down, crouching, dark head cocked and the emo swoosh hiding his eyes. Readiness ran through the rest of them like oil over the surface of a plate, tension gathering. Nat rolled her shoulders twice, glancing at me. The last couple runs she’d kept pace right beside me, and once she’d grabbed my hand just as I was getting ready to launch myself over a couple of elevated trains.
Don’t ask. Anyway.
Shanks threw his head back and howled. The rest of them joined in, a rising chorus of high thrillglass baying, their throats swelling and their eyes lambent. Even under late-spring sun, that cry filled my head with moonlight and plucked deep below the conscious surface. It teased and taunted and tweaked and pulled at that . . . thing.
The low, furry, clawed thing inside all of us that remembers the joy of night-hunting.
My chin was up, my mouth open, and a spear of silver ice wound through their harmony, a svetocha ’s distinctive cry. It was uncomfortably like a sucker’s glassine hunting scream, but I was helpless to stop it, and they never said a word about it.
Nat yanked on my arm, and the world turned over. It rushed underneath me, my boots touching down every so often, and my heart leapt against my rib cage like it wanted to escape. Feathers brushed every inch of my skin, and I hurled myself forward in the middle of the shifting, leaping pack of wulfen.
They closed around me even on daylight runs, arms pumping and the change rippling over them like clear heavy water, fur not quite breaking free of the surface. We poured around the edge of the Pond and the whole green length of Central Park unreeled underneath us like a treadmill’s belt. As always, it was oddly silent, just the wind in my ears, stinging my eyes, all of them suddenly welded into one creature running just for the heart-exploding joy of it. If you’ve ever seen a cheetah going all-out, maybe you can guess what I mean.
Breath tearing in throat, I jumped and my right boot skimmed the top of a granite boulder, barely brushing the moss. My leg uncoiled, pushed me forward like a slingshot. The rest of them leapt, Evan catching a tree limb and jackknifing, launching himself into clear air. He landed with sweet natural authority and was neck-and-nose with Shanks for a few steps, but he fell back as the leggy boy veered and we burst out of the Park’s green into the concrete jungle.
We ran, flashing through hot gold sun and gray exhaust-scorch shadow, and for a little while I could pretend someone else was running with us. A boy in a long black canvas coat, his green eyes alight and the change never quite breaking through his skin—because loup-garou use the Other for mental dominance, not for the physical morphing.
We ran, and the ghost of Graves ran with us. If tears slicked my cheeks, I could pretend they were stung free by the wind. We hit the Brooklyn Battery toll tunnel and poured through in merry violation of several laws, relying on
It didn’t scare me. I had so much else to be scared of nowadays that wulfen were looking pretty damn safe. Plus, I trusted them.
I trusted them all.
Shanks punched Dibs on the shoulder, but very lightly. “You’ve already wasted half of it, Dibsie. Get going.”
Dibs stood there for a few seconds. A slow, very sweet grin lit up his entire face, and I blinked. In that one second, shy, blushing Dibs looked . . . well, almost handsome.
Then he turned on his heel and was gone, skirting the edge of the pool and vanishing into leafshade and sunshine. His hair blazed for a moment, but then branches moved to hide that gleam.
Shanks glanced at me. The orange in his irises fought with the fluid leaf-shadows. “Keep up, Dru-girl.”
I snorted. “You haven’t lost me yet, Robert .” It was what Christophe called him, just like he called Dibs Samuel all the time.
It was Shanks’s turn to make a little dismissive noise. He folded down, crouching, dark head cocked and the emo swoosh hiding his eyes. Readiness ran through the rest of them like oil over the surface of a plate, tension gathering. Nat rolled her shoulders twice, glancing at me. The last couple runs she’d kept pace right beside me, and once she’d grabbed my hand just as I was getting ready to launch myself over a couple of elevated trains.
Don’t ask. Anyway.
Shanks threw his head back and howled. The rest of them joined in, a rising chorus of high thrillglass baying, their throats swelling and their eyes lambent. Even under late-spring sun, that cry filled my head with moonlight and plucked deep below the conscious surface. It teased and taunted and tweaked and pulled at that . . . thing.
The low, furry, clawed thing inside all of us that remembers the joy of night-hunting.
My chin was up, my mouth open, and a spear of silver ice wound through their harmony, a svetocha ’s distinctive cry. It was uncomfortably like a sucker’s glassine hunting scream, but I was helpless to stop it, and they never said a word about it.
Nat yanked on my arm, and the world turned over. It rushed underneath me, my boots touching down every so often, and my heart leapt against my rib cage like it wanted to escape. Feathers brushed every inch of my skin, and I hurled myself forward in the middle of the shifting, leaping pack of wulfen.
They closed around me even on daylight runs, arms pumping and the change rippling over them like clear heavy water, fur not quite breaking free of the surface. We poured around the edge of the Pond and the whole green length of Central Park unreeled underneath us like a treadmill’s belt. As always, it was oddly silent, just the wind in my ears, stinging my eyes, all of them suddenly welded into one creature running just for the heart-exploding joy of it. If you’ve ever seen a cheetah going all-out, maybe you can guess what I mean.
Breath tearing in throat, I jumped and my right boot skimmed the top of a granite boulder, barely brushing the moss. My leg uncoiled, pushed me forward like a slingshot. The rest of them leapt, Evan catching a tree limb and jackknifing, launching himself into clear air. He landed with sweet natural authority and was neck-and-nose with Shanks for a few steps, but he fell back as the leggy boy veered and we burst out of the Park’s green into the concrete jungle.
We ran, flashing through hot gold sun and gray exhaust-scorch shadow, and for a little while I could pretend someone else was running with us. A boy in a long black canvas coat, his green eyes alight and the change never quite breaking through his skin—because loup-garou use the Other for mental dominance, not for the physical morphing.
We ran, and the ghost of Graves ran with us. If tears slicked my cheeks, I could pretend they were stung free by the wind. We hit the Brooklyn Battery toll tunnel and poured through in merry violation of several laws, relying on
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