Page 3 of Catnip

She had access to a fairly large pile of cash, though. Thank fuck for nameless, untraceable Swiss bank accounts, held by bankers who still remained faithful to her family. She could hire awitch.

Where would she find one,though?

One name came to mind. The name had been the answer to every question she’d asked herself for months, but each time she’d thought of it, she’dtrembled.

In her travels, at the rare times she’d come across other shifters, they’d mentioned him. Everyone knew him, or knew of him, in any case. In this part of the world, he was known as a benevolent loner, someone people could turn to when they really needed help. She knewbetter.

If she wanted to live, she was going to have to seek out Knox, all the while knowing that there was a very real chance he would take one look at her and rip her throat out. Knox wasn’t benevolent. He certainly wasn’t a loner,either.

But he could end the madness that had ripped her family apart if he so wished. He could also probably put her in contact with someone who could healher.

Again: if he so wished. He probablywouldn’t.

“We haveto go our separate ways,” Richard had told her, ignoring how she frantically shook herhead.

The blood of their parents still soaked her long skirt, but while their betraying butchers were occupied, she managed to get away. Then, she’d seen two of her siblings, Aria and Rupert, take a knife through the heart. The monsters who’d turned on them had also raped them both, first, while Ava hid in the secret corridors between the walls of her home, like the coward shewas.

She crawled to safety when the murderers dispersed, and, finally, after putting every single skill in her arsenal to good use, she got out. Richard had found her as soon as she’d left Dale and stepped intoRome.

She couldn’t lose Richard after all that - she justcouldn’t.

“If we’re together, we’ll be ten times easier to spot. They’ll go after me,” he’d told her, only managing to make her cry harder. “You’ll get a head start. Then, you can fly far, far away from here. Fly to another country if you can, I know your bird can doit.”

“Never,” she’dyelled.

“Three thousand years, Ava. That’s how far back our family goes. We’re the first of our kind - the first eagles. Do you know what may happen to every eagle on earth if none of uslive?”

She didknow.

“America. You fly to America, you hear me? They say the First Wolf is in America, somewhere. You need to get to him and ask him to stepin.”

Her eyes bulged in herface.

“He can end this, you know hecan.”

“But he’s amonster.”

The original monster her grandmother told her tales about, the boogieman that would come and eat her if she was naughty. She wasn’t a kid anymore, but she recalled thetales.

“Those are just stories, Sister. And if they aren’t, it doesn’t change anything. I’ll be on the run for months, or years. They have everything they need to track me. You? There isn’t even a picture of you online, and I burned your room before leaving. You’re safe. Find him, and get him to help, or every single one of usdies.”

If he’d just told her to save her skin, she would never have left his side, but he had known better. He’d given her a mission she couldn’t refuse. So she hugged him hard, and shifted, before running for her life, remembering a lesson she’d been taught before she could write. Her blood didn’t belong toher.

She had to find the First Wolf. In New York, she learned that Fenrir went by Knox, nowadays. In Boston, she was told he sometimes came out of his den for hisfriends.In New Orleans, there were whispers of him lending his hand to a pride of felines a few months back. So, slowly, she’d crept closer and closer to hergoal.

Six months, she’d survived. She’d live another day, she swore, dragging her feet all the way to her room. She collapsed on her bed and succumbed to thedarkness.

Choice

The fighting stopped just as suddenlyand violently as it had started. One second, they were surrounded by so many enemies they had no hope of living through the day; the next, the few amongst their enemies left standing were begging for theirlives.

The woman who came to save the day looked like a Sports Illustrated model. What she did belonged in the realm of the impossible; at a flick of her wrist, a humongous wave rose from the nearby lake and took shape, undulating to wrap itself against the attackers’ throats. She smirked as they were dragged to the bottom of thelake.

He should have been happy. Instead, he felt sick to his stomach. That wasn’t a fight as much as an execution. Whatever creature these things, these Scions, were, he didn’t want to deal with them. Today, they’d been on his side, but who knew what they’d dotomorrow?

“You’re alright?” Rye asked him, catching his expression, right after the madness wasover.

They’d made a deal with the devil, and won. Hopefully, they wouldn’t live to regret it toomuch.

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