This wasn’t just a fight for her life. It was a fight to spend a life with Evan.
That thought made her push her legs harder. The crow and the snowy owl were flying beside her, sailing low, dodging foliage through the trees.
Up ahead, the bear roared, and Nicole could see it. Vlaric was latched onto Wyatt’s back, his claws and teeth sunken deep into his hide.
Fury possessed her, consumed her, lit her on fire, and she didn’t think or slow. She pushed herself and leapt through the air, hit that battle hard, and ripped the vampire off him. She pushed him into the dirt and pinned him down with one claw, and then she ripped one of his disgusting, tattered wings off his shoulder blade with her teeth.
Fueled with vengeance, she spit the twitching thing out and reveled in the creature’s screaming. He disappeared into a cloud of purple smoke, but she was done. She didn’t care about dragging this war out or making sure Weston’s vision came to fruition. She was in charge of her own fate.
With a snarl, she ran after the purple smoke and screaming bats, and above her, the sky moved.
That’s all she could think to describe it. The clouds gave way to a swarm of bats.
Her coven was here.
Evan was here.
She could feel him.
Vlaric couldn’t fly. He was injured, and his smoke twitched this way and that but didn’t gain altitude. He stayed in reach, and something dark inside of Nicole smiled.
A screech sounded from the monster, like nails on a chalkboard, and just as she reached him, just as she opened her jaws to latch onto him and destroy him, he disappeared.
And then…she could feel him behind her, but it was too late for her to turn and defend her neck. Shit!
Claws dug into her sides, and his sharp teeth latched deep onto the back of her neck. Shit, shit, shit!
Nicole twisted to try and unloose him, but he was on her tight. And just as she knew he would sever her spine, the smoke thickened around him and he was ripped from her body.
Time slowed. His black eyes were wide, his bloodied fangs exposed as he screamed, his arms thrust forward with the force of whatever was pulling him backward.
Evan appeared out of the smoke and slammed him to the ground. With a sharpened limb, he laid his weight on Vlaric and murmured, “I’ll see you in hell,” as he ran the splintered wood deep into his chest.
Vlaric arched and shrieked as his torso smoldered and billowed smoke. Evan stood and smiled down at him, never breaking eye contract as the evil vampire gasped for air and screamed in pain. Vlaric gave a last arch of his back against the forest floor and then disintegrated into a pile of burning ashes.
Evan’s hand was smoking where he held the stake. He dropped it to the ground and dragged his black gaze to Nicole. He didn’t have a shirt on, and his skin was red with angry burns from the sunlight earlier. His chiseled face was monstrous with anger, and those eyes…those eyes…she would never forget the fury in those eyes.
And then they softened.
Around them stood the coven—Sadey and Dawn’s snow leopards, Aric, Garret. Through the trees, Nicole could see Wyatt’s bear standing stock-still. The Novak Raven and the snowy owl sat on a low-hanging branch in a tree.
Nicole stood frozen here, so different now. She wasn’t human anymore. She was a grizzly, panting, shaking…shocked.
It was over.
The pile of ashes at Evan’s feet said as much, but this moment was loaded.
Nothing was the same.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
She was no longer human, and any eternal life Evan had planned was now altered. She was a shifter, unable to be turned into a vampire. She was mortal.
For a moment, she thought he would be upset. She thought he would be frustrated or sad that her humanity had been taken.
But…
As he stood there, every muscle tensed, his eyes on her new monstrous form for the first time ever, a slow smile stretched his lips.
And then he told her something that settled the way she would feel about herself and her new form from here on out.
He put her fears at ease with two simple words.
Barely audible over the breeze, he murmured, “Beautiful badass.”
Epilogue
Nicole cuddle the little Alaskan puppy closer.
She was black and white with one blue eye, one brown eye. Her name was Bingo, and Nicole had known about her since the day she was born. Her breeder had been kind enough to give her all the update pics as she’d hit her milestones—opening her eyes, walking, first time on grass, first time eating solid food…
She’d kept it all to herself, all this time, because she’d been wanting to give Evan this moment.
Evan was sitting on the front porch, waiting for her to get home from a late-night counseling session, when she pulled up. She hadn’t been at a counseling session at all, though. She’d been driving all day while he slept to pick up this precious baby.
He stood on the porch and gave a wave, looked so happy that she was home, and Nicole had a moment as she put her car in park. The last few months after the final death of Vlaric had been a whirlwind. The Bloodrunners were now in friendly contact since their alpha, the Bloodrunner Dragon, allowed peace between their crew and the Winterset Coven. They’d become allies. In a way, the coven felt bigger already as they grew friendships with shifters that they had warred with before.
Everyone was capable of change. That’s what the last few months had
