One second she was safe and securely hidden and the next she was sliding easily over the wet, muddy ground. The branches scraped along her body but she threw her free arm over her face to protect it a bit.

“Stay low to the ground and try to move as quietly as possible,” the man explained, his dark, stormy blue eyes piercing into and through her.

The deep, alluring tones of his voice had given her a little bit of a mental image of the man but what she imagined and reality were two completely different things. In her mind’s eye, she had pictured a slim, proper man dressed in a dark-colored suit with gold or red accents despite the fact that wearing a suit in a forest like this was absurd. She even imagined him with a fancy gold pocket watch, its gold chain draping from a buttonhole and into the pocket where it lived. He’d also been dark of hair with a streak of gray and a pointed goatee. In reality, her savior was less dapper and more sensible. He wore a pair of thick, denim pants that had seen a lot of wear and tear, tanned hiking boots made from leather, and a navy and gray flannel over a simple white t-shirt. His hair was actually more of a light brown and had no gray streak in it. He did have facial hair but not a goatee. It was a full, thick beard that covered the lower portion of his face.

“There you go,” the man told her. “That’s right.”

At the same time she was coming out from under the fallen tree, the werewolf pack that burned down her village found them. They must have been a lot closer than either one thought.

“Well, well,” the one called Drake muttered, stepping out from behind a tree a dozen or so yards away. “Caught up to you didn’t I?”

He caught sight of the new guy and his eyes narrowed with intense, fiery hatred.

“What the hell are you doing here, Russel?” Drake snarled. The others with him fanned out, each one keeping their eyes locked on Lola’s rescuer.

“Came for a bit of a stroll and wouldn’t you know it, I came across the scent of a rabid animal. Had to see what that was about,” Russel said, smiling somewhat.

It does look a bit devilish, Lola thought to herself. It was a totally weird and inappropriate thing to think at that moment but she was reasonably sure her mind was starting to sort of shut down. Or something like that. All the horrors of recent events were compounding inside her head until she felt deadened inside. Numb almost.

“You can go back to your weak ass kingdom. Go play it safe with the humans behind your borders. This has got nothing to do with you,” Drake said, letting his body drop into a sort of hunched-over crouch. He held both hands out and both Lola and Russel watched the nails at the ends of his fingers elongate into vicious, black claws.

“You really want to do this?” Russel asked. He looked at Lola and then back at Drake. “You want to risk all-out war with both my kingdom and the human kingdom over an insignificant girl from a backwater village in the middle of nowhere?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he shot back, spit flying from his mouth. His face started to sprout more hair. His nose and mouth gradually elongated. He was shifting and as he did, the harsh growling tones to his voice became more pronounced. “Now get out of my way before I slice open your throat.”

Russel smiled and dropped into a low crouch too. His eyes flashed with amber light and claws grew out of his fingertips too.

“Let’s go then,” he said.