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  Tess froze for a moment. Then she left the ladies room as quietly as she could, palming the keys to the truck, which were in the pocket of the baggy sweatpants, to keep them from jingling.

  Silently, she slipped out the door and was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “Garron? Garron?” Tess’s throat hurt and her voice was hoarse from calling so much. Her arms were scratched from several encounters with wild black raspberry bushes and the stinging cut that ran from her temple to her jaw which Pierce had made was bleeding again. She was a mess and the shadows in the woods were growing long as sunset rapidly approached. Still, she didn’t want to give up.

  “Where is he?” she muttered to herself, pressing through another thick copse of trees. The springy branch of a young alder sprang back and slapped her in the face. Tess gave a little gasp and pressed a hand to her cheek. One of the twigs had poked her in the face, just a fraction of an inch from her eye. Maybe it was time to take stock before she blinded herself or bled to death from a million tiny scratches.

  “Garron, where are you?” she said softly. Then she looked around her. “And where am I?”

  Lost, that’s where you are, whispered a pessimistic little voice in her brain. Where was Tess BP when she needed her? But the peppy cheerleader voice was conspicuously absent.

  Tess pushed the idea of being lost aside, refusing to panic, and looked around some more. Unfortunately, nothing in this part of the woods looked remotely familiar.

  She had set off late that morning from the cabin, thinking to try and trace the dr’gin’s trail. Unfortunately, it had left no trace. No footprints or broken branches—nothing at all as far as Tess could see.

  Remembering the way it seemed to float in the air, completely ignoring gravity, she supposed that made sense. Still, she had hoped to find at least one or two clumps of its white feather-fur caught in the branches of trees or bushes. But there was no sign that the dr’gin had ever been there. It was as if it had vanished into thin air.

  Undeterred, Tess had set off to circle the cabin, calling Garron’s name. Her circles had grown wider and wider as the hours wore on until she found she had somehow spent almost all day in the woods calling for him.

  Maybe you should head back, whispered the pessimistic voice in her brain. If you can find the way back, that is. You can try again tomorrow. After all, it’s almost sunset now and I don’t think you want to meet his dr’gin in the dark.

  Tess had to admit that was true. Meeting the beast with its razor sharp claws and knife-like teeth in the daytime would be bad enough. But day or night, she had no idea what she was going to do when she did meet it—if she ever met it at all. Should she call it to her? Treat it like a dangerous dog that might bite? Would she even get a chance to do any of that? What if it came at her from behind? What if it was already stalking her? What if it was behind her right now?

  Stop it! Tess told herself angrily. Stop worrying so much. This is Garron we’re talking about—he loves me! He won’t hurt me, in either form.

  Oh yeah? Then why did he attack you and almost rape you earlier? whispered the voice. Eating Pierce changed him. Going D’fex has probably changed him too. At least, Truth and Becca seemed to be convinced it had.

  Well, they’re wrong, Tess told the voice stubbornly. Garron is still in there, inside his dr’gin somewhere. I just have to find him so I can find a way to get him out. I just—

  A suddenly crackling in the leaves behind her made her gasp and whirl around. There was nothing there on first glance but then Tess was able to make something out. A pair of large, yellow eyes was staring at her from between the leaves. Predator’s eyes.

  “Uh…” Tess took a step back and the owner of the eyes took a step forward.

  When it came out from the shadows of the trees, she had to bite back a gasp. It was a simply enormous wolf with shaggy gray fur and glaring yellow eyes. It stared at her unblinkingly and a long pink tongue came out to circle its jaws.

  Oh my God, it’s hungry! It’s licking its chops!

  Tess’s heart started pounding but she knew from experience that if you let a dog know you were afraid of it, it would come after you. Taking a deep breath, she straightened up and looked the wolf in the eyes.

  “Get!” she said in her strongest voice. “Go on, get!”

  The wolf cocked its head to one side, regarding her as if she was an interesting specimen it would like to study. Or maybe a tasty morsel it would like to taste. Then it took another step towards her.

  “No, get!” Tess reached out blindly, trying to find any kind of a weapon without taking her eyes off the huge gray predator. Her seeking hand found the springy alder branch that had whipped her in the face earlier and she broke it off with quick, jerky movements, her eyes glued to the wolf the entire time.

  The wolf took another step forward and she swished the branch at it. It was so close now that she smacked the tip of its black nose.

  The wolf jerked back and its silky muzzle wrinkled into a snarl. It began to growl—a low rumbling like the idling of a car that seemed to rise from deep in its throat.

  “Get back!” Tess insisted, waving the branch at it again. “I mean it, get away from me!”

  She was backing up as she spoke—which made it hard to appear confident and menacing but she tried. Then her heel caught on a root and she went sprawling.

  It happened in a second but it seemed to take much longer. Tess gave a gasping cry and pinwheeled her arms, trying to regain her balance. The wolf, no doubt sensing an easy supper, crouched to leap on her.

  Tess fell backwards, watching helplessly as the lean, shaggy gray shape launched itself in her direction. It’s going to kill me—kill me and eat me up. Guess it’s my day to die after all…

  But it wasn’t. Just as she could see the wolf’s huge yellow eyes and its slavering jaws growing in her field of vision, something long and sinuous and white appeared. It clamped the wolf in its teeth and shook it until Tess heard a sharp snap and a piercing whimper. The blur of motion was suddenly still and the white form loomed over her. Tess was finally able to see what had saved her.

  “Oh my God….Garron?” she whispered. It was indeed him—or his dr’gin at least. It floated in the air before her with its white feather-fur flying in all directions, looking even more otherworldly now in the forest than it had back at the cabin. The limp form of the wolf hung from its jaws. “Garron?” she whispered again.

  The dr’gin shook the beast in its jaws viciously and then let go with a snap! The huge wolf went flying and slammed against a nearby tree trunk where it crumpled to a silent heap on the ground, obviously dead.

  “Garron?” Tess scrambled to her feet, never taking her eyes from the floating form. It was looking at her again. Giving her that unblinking glare that had so unnerved her at the cabin. What was it thinking? Whether she would taste good for dinner? She would have thought that eating someone as big as Pierce would keep it satisfied for awhile but it was twilight now and her ex-husband had been devoured in the early morning. Maybe the dr’gin had a really fast metabolism. Maybe it was already hungry again. Maybe…

  The brilliant, glowing turquoise eyes, so like Garron’s, suddenly narrowed and the dr’gin inhaled deeply, its nostrils flaring as it sniffed the air.

  Oh my God, it’s smelling me. Becca and Truth were right. I’ve stranded myself in the forest with the equivalent of a man eating tiger. I—

  Her thoughts were cut off as the dr’gin lunged right at her.

  Tess gasped as she was knocked to one side. She heard a scuffle in the dried leaves and bushes right behind her. A strangled snarl turned abruptly into a pained whimper.

  Scrambling to turn around, she saw the dr’gin had yet another wolf in its jaws—it must have been sneaking up on her from behind.

  One more minute and I would have been wolf chow! It saved my life—twice. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?

  She didn’t get a chance to answer her own question because off to