Page 123 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

Something in his spine snapped, preparing to change. The threads pressed down on him. He tasted blood, roses.

Sorcha stifled a gasp. Her mouth trembled and she bit down hard on her lower lip. “You’ve got Tavish and Brutus here. I won’t be nearly helpful enough in a fight. But maybe I can take down the spell.”

And if she stayed, her wound would continue to bleed. Already it was dripping onto the ground and staining her dress as it fell.

“Tavish, I need a travel spell.” Aidan showed her to a box filled with doorknobs of every kind, from carved wooden flowers, to enamel, to crystal. They were a popular way to travel between doors in London, spelled to take a witch to the goblin market or Vauxhall Gardens or to your grandmother’s house. There was only one proper portal on Lyonesse, the one in Haven, which could take you to London or Edinburgh. But on the island proper, when horses were not fast enough or posh enough, witches also used doorknobs. Fit one on a door and step through. And the Wolf Wood had such a door.

He had thought it a civilized convenience before. Now he was not so certain.

“Even if Simon here isn’t working alone, then the Collector still doesn’t have the wolf teeth and he’s not shielded against me. My birds found the missing wolves now, which means they found him. And he needs me to find him, doesn’t he? If he wants my blood.”

“Wait.” His voice wasn’t his voice anymore, more wolf growl than anything else.

She was so beautiful, with her tangled red hair, her freckled cheeks, her crown of paper birds ready to lead her into the heart of danger.

Alone.

Like hell.

Like fucking hell would he let that happen.

“You can’t track him, but you can track me,” she said, eyes shining with the kind of trust that raked across the inside of his ribcage. The kind of trust he would do anything to deserve. “Your wolf can find me.” She smiled briefly, and then fit the doorknob to the door that would no longer open to nothing. “Come and get me, Aidan.”

And then she was gone.

The howl that ripped from him could be heard across the water, all the way to Orkney.

Hunt.

Find.

Protect.

Mine.

The spell pulled Sorcha along as though she were a feather caught in a spring river. To fight it was to drown. She could only let it take her where it willed and hope it was where she needed to go. Colors bled together, burning fennel turning to lemon balm. Her arm ached. Everything went topsy-turvy.

And then she finally landed.

In a courtyard lit with torches, the moon high overhead. The tower was packed with a waiting audience—she could hear it in the wind. The air was always sharp, the magic thrumming in your teeth the nearer you were to the Cauldron, but it was different this time. There seemed to be a heartbeat thrumming, one she could not hear but could feel, going faster and faster. The cut on her arm started to bleed through the bandage again, tingling with pain. Her witch knot responded. The moon was covered, for a moment, by a murder of crows.

“Finally,” someone said, stepping out of the shadows. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

As it turned out, the Collector was not a man after all.

Not even a stranger.