Page 45 of Blood So Brutal

He laughed quietly, his broad chest shaking against my shoulders. “Focus here.” He snaked an arm around my body and pressed his palm against my stomach. “What do you feel?”

My entire body became aware of his hand pressed against me. “I feelyou.”

I couldn’t see him, but I could practically feel the way he smirked. His fingers tightened, pressing deeper into me. His thumb brushed my ribs just below my breast, and his smallest finger reached down to my pant line. “What else do you feel?”

I took a deep, calming breath of the fresh forest air and tried to think about what else I felt, if anything. Yes, I felt him. I felt his warmth, his presence,him, but as he moved his fingers slowly, as he pressed his hand deeper against my body, I felt something else, too. Something deep stirred within me, like excitement and adrenaline mixed together in a seed deep within my body.

“That,” he whispered. “Thatis your power awakening, Huntress. Since you fed, you’ll be gaining more and more strength each day. You’re changing.”

My breath hitched. He didn’t move his hand. I knew my power would grow once I fed, once I completed that transition into a vampyre. I did notice the way Wolf’s blood healed my wounds overnight. It pulsed through my body with a new waveof strength, and I didn’t realize just how badly I craved just that. It was as if I could finally take a full breath, like I finally felt fully energized.

But that all came from Wolf’s blood. I was still terrified of what would happen from my own magic awakening. “What if I don’t want to change?”

“You will,” he replied. “Especially when you’re powerful enough to summon your own wings.”

Wings?I twisted around so I could see his face. His eyes lit up with a teasing level of amusement. “Are you kidding? You think I’ll be able to fly?”

“You are descended from the most powerful vampyre bloodline. There are much weaker vampyres that have no problem summoning wings. All it takes is magic, which you already possess. I don’t doubt it for a second.”

I couldn’t stop the smile that spread over my face or the laughter that bubbled from me.Flying.With wings, I could fly far, far away from here. I wouldn’t be a slave to my feet, wouldn’t be trapped riding horses or spending days on any one journey.

I could go home.

I could go anywhere in the world.

“Don’t get too excited,” Jessiah called from ahead, clearly eavesdropping on our entire conversation. “We have to survive the next few days first.”

His voice had gone cold, worried.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He shook his head, his eyes scanning the thick trees of the horizon as he slowed his horse. “I don’t know,” he answered. “But something doesn’t feel right.”

Wolf slowed our horse too, immediately stiffening. “You’ve still got Venom, right?” he asked. I loved that even he called her by her name, out of respect more than anything.

I nodded.

“Good.” His hand moved from my stomach to my waistline, where Venom was strapped to my belt. He slid her out of the sheath seamlessly and moved it to my hands.

I took it without question.

Jessiah descended from his horse without a sound. His white, feathered wings were tucked tightly behind his shoulders, ready for a fight.

Wolf started to do the same, quietly guiding himself onto the ground.

I stayed on the horse, peering into the forest around us. Jessiah was right—something was off. The birds should have been chirping, the wind should have been blowing the trees and rustling the leaves.

Instead, there was only silence. An eerie, blood-curdling silence.

But then, I smelled it: the same stench that lurked in my nightmares since I was a child.

Hungry ones.

Chapter 14

Huntyr

The three of us stopped. Both horses felt the tension, felt the threat nearby.

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