Chapter One

Kylie

“Yer dead, ya lily-livered thief!” the cowboy shouts. He shakes his fists in the air and bares his teeth like a wild animal. But he’s not an animal. He’s an actor playing a part.

I sigh as my gaze wanders over the street of the hokiest tourist trap in the Old West. At twenty bucks a pop, Wrathrock Ghost Town promises a “fantastic adventure through the mists of time with authentic Utah Old West flavor,” but it delivers off-off-Broadway schlock. I once again scan the dusty dirt street that stretches for three blocks ahead of me, taking in the old-looking buildings lined up along either side of the road, buildings that might actually be old structures or might be artfully aged replicas. A block away, a stagecoach—the one my friends and I arrived in—waits in front of a building labeled “Sassy May’s Boarding House.”

Mopping sweat from my brow, I search the surroundings for anyplace where I might hunt down a bottle of water or a can of pop to quench my parched mouth. The midsummer sun scorches my skin and squeezes perspiration from every pore on my body. The sweat oozes down the back of my neck and between my breasts. Why did I wear a denim shirt over my tank top? Sure, the denim top is unbuttoned, but that doesn’t make me feel any cooler.

I shrug out of the denim shirt and tie the sleeves around my waist. At least I had the good sense to wear shorts.

My attention wanders back to the phony cowboy.

He yanks the trigger on his clumsy, oversize revolver. The shot booms, echoing down the dusty street, while the other man, aka the lily-livered thief, lets out a melodramatic cry before collapsing in an exaggerated fall that sends his feet flying up as his backside hits the dirt.

The other tourists gathered before the duo cheer and clap. The faux cowboy proudly brandishes his gun over his head and smiles at the crowd. The “corpse” on the ground waves to the audience too, spoiling his ever-so-convincing act of playing dead.

“That was so lame,” my best friend, Jenna Foster, mutters.

I look at Jenna, who’s rolling her eyes at the previously deceased thief as he rises from the ground and takes a bow.

Jenna groans. “I mean, really, if these guys are SAG members, they should be kicked out for crimes against acting.”

My other best friend, Megan Rivera, announces, “They can’t be members, unless SAG stands for Sawdust Amateurs Guild.”

“Oh, you two,” I moan, returning my attention to the cowboys. “Drama students should not visit tourist traps. What did you expect, Shakespeare in the Park?”

Movement just past the two cowboys catches my eye, and I squint at the figure who walks out of the shadows beneath the saloon’s porch. The man saunters into the street, his head turned away, a long and battered leather coat billowing around his legs and a rust-brown cowboy hat slanted low over his eyes. He towers over the two hams who are yucking it up for the crowd despite being several feet behind them. Just as the mysterious newcomer strides past the duo, he vanishes.

I stare at the space where he’d been. The guy had just…faded into nothing. Like a ghost.

A shiver tingles through me. I can’t disguise the wonder in my voice when I say, “Wow, that was one amazing special effect. Did you guys see it?”

“See what?” Jenna asks as she tosses her hair over her shoulder.

I gesture past the cowboys. “The man who walked across the street behind those two and disappeared. How’d they do that?” I raise onto my tiptoes but can’t see anything behind the cowboys. “Must’ve been a projection or a hologram or something.”

“What man?” Megan asks, a hint of annoyance in her tone. “I was staring right in that direction, and nobody was there.”

“He was there. I swear it.” How could my friends have missed that imposing figure? Imposing and sexy. “I saw a guy with big muscles and wide shoulders wearing a wicked-cool leather coat.”

Megan pats my shoulder. “Girl, you’re majorly stressed about your capstone project, aren’t you? Imagining hotties in a ghost town?” She leans closer to murmur in my ear, “You need to get laid, Kylie. Virginicity isn’t good for your mental state.”

“Virginicity is not a word.”

“Sure it is.” Megan straightens and smirks, eying the cowboys. “It’s in the dictionary, right after Very Pent-Up Grad Student.”

“I am not pent-up.” When my friends giggle at my proclamation, I give up. If I hadn’t known them both since fifth grade, I might take offense. But sarcasm is how we’ve always rolled, and I know my friends tease me because they love me. Maybe I did imagine that man. I’m thirsty, and dehydration can do weird things to a person. “I need a drink.”

“Sorry, babe,” Jenna says, nodding toward the saloon. “Family restaurant, no booze.”

“I meant a drink of water.”

Jenna grins and bumps her shoulder into mine. “I know. Just ribbing you. Could you please relax a little and try to get into the cheese factory we paid good money to see?” She adopts a fake pout that’s a touch overdone. “I was hoping for sleazy cowboys who hit on saucy wenches in the crowd. Instead, we’re stuck in Disneyland Meets the Dust Bowl.”

“Let me get a drink and then we can leave. All right?”

Both Jenna and Megan voice their agreement, though not in actual words, and I sidle through the crowd to hop up onto the saloon porch. From this vantage, I have a better view of the mountains far beyond the ghost town’s limits, their slopes rising high above the Great Basin, in which Wrathrock lies. Though I’ve lived in this area for six years, since my best friends and I decided to escape rainy Seattle for the stunning scenery of west-central Utah, I still feel a little out of place here. For as long as I can remember, I’ve searched for a sense of connection that I never quite find.

Connection. What a silly idea. An ornithology grad student, steeped in science, ought to be immune to sappy mumbo-jumbo. Not that I’ll ever admit to Jenna or Megan that I yearn for something I can’t define, a nebulous need beyond my reach.

And yes, there are birds in this arid region.

I buy a can of Pepsi from a vending machine inside the saloon and amble to the end of the porch, near where I saw—or thought I saw—the man in the leather coat. While the two lame-ass cowboys left footprints on the dirt street, the path my mystery man took is clean. Because he doesn’t exist, moron. Too many hours of studying the migration patterns of the cliff swallow must’ve fried my brain.

A scuffling noise draws my attention to the shadow-cloaked alley between the saloon and the general store. My breath catches, and my pulse quickens.

The man in the leather coat strides down the alley away from me.

I leap off the porch, rocketing down the alley after him, but he’s already swerving around a corner into another alley behind the general store. I veer around the corner, stumbling to a halt when I realize the alley ends a few yards ahead of me. Panting, my heart pounding, I swipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand.

The man is gone, of course. Hallucinations tend to vanish without a trace.

Why can’t I meet a guy like that? A real man, not a wuss like all the guys I’ve met who aren’t hallucinations. Is it too much to ask for a hero who takes my breath away? Or at least doesn’t wear baggy cargo pants? I long for the kind of man I’ve read about in books and seen in old movies, the kind who kisses a woman like he means it.

Oh jeez. Maybe I do need to get laid after all.

I’ve still got the unopened Pepsi can in my hand. So I pop the top, take a sip, and survey the ground for footprints. Nothing but my tracks. I swig more pop, and the blessed chill of it feels so good even while the carbonation sizzles down my throat. I toss back another mouthful, letting my eyes drift shut.

Someone coughs.

My lids fly open.

I gasp at the old man who hunches before me, leaning on a gnarled wooden walking stick. He studies me, his ink-dark eyes squinted. Wrinkles carve deep lines on his face while a sharp, hooked nose lends him the noble air of a bald eagle. A woven poncho covers his bent frame, and gray hair flares wildly around his head.

“There you are,” he says, his voice brittle. “I’ve been waiting for you, Kylie.”

I stagger backward half a step. Waiting for me? No, that’s not creepy at all. “How do you know my name?”

“Been waiting for you,” he repeats, as if that explains everything. “Took so much longer than I anticipated, but fate has a way of meandering to its destination.”

Since I have no clue what the man is babbling about, I decide it’s time to exit the conversation. I back up a few more steps, then whirl around and lurch into a dead run.

And I smack into the old man.

I stumble backward, and the pop can flies out of my grasp. It plops onto the dirt, spewing brown liquid.

The old man raises a placating hand.

My pulse thunders in my ears anyway. “How did you…”

“The old ways.” He shuts his eyes briefly. “I have no time to explain, dear, else I would. But the winds of time speak your name, and nothing can stop what must come to pass.”

A warm breeze tickles my midriff, and I realize with a start that my tank top had ridden up when I’d stumbled into the old man. Yanking it down, I tuck the hem under the denim shirt that’s still tied around my waist. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“You will soon.” He reaches inside his poncho to pull out a bronze medallion the size of a silver dollar that hangs from a thick cord fashioned from what looks like hemp. “This is yours.”

He removes the necklace and holds it out to me.

I stare at the medallion and its frayed cord. Taking gifts from strangers was one of the big no-no’s I learned as a child. But I’m an adult now, right? Twenty-four and capable of taking care of myself. Besides, what harm can a medallion do?

The old man jiggles the necklace. “Take it, child. You will need its power soon.”

“Power?”

My gaze locks onto the medallion as the bronze disk rotates on its axis, revealing flashes of both sides. One face has a five-pointed star on it, while the other features a stylized image of a howling wolf. It doesn’t look Native American, though I’m hardly an expert. The medallion seems more Old World European.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“A shaman of sorts. My people once lived in the lands that encompass this place.” He shakes his head, his face pinched and his eyes half-closed as if he’s recalling a painful memory. “The curse will not let go. The Old Ones have spoken, and it was your name they called.” His eyes spring open, fixed on me with an unnerving intensity that sends a shiver wriggling down my spine. “Kylie Drummond, the purest soul and keeper of the wolf’s destiny.”

Another shiver rakes down my spine, harder this time, and goosebumps pebble my arms. Wolf’s destiny? Purest soul? It’s a bunch of wacko nonsense.

“Yeah, sure,” I tell him. “Whatever you say.”

He swings the necklace side to side like a pendulum. “Your life will change when you embrace the power of the medallion.”

The eerie way he intones those words does something strange to me. My mind is fuzzy, my pulse has slowed, and I can’t move a muscle or look away from his eyes. I stretch out a trembling hand and close it around the medallion, feeling its cool metal against my palm. The second my hand encloses the disk, a gust of wind blows dust into my eyes, forcing me to shut them tight. When I peel them open again, the old man is gone.

But I still clasp the medallion in my palm.

I stand here frozen, dumbfounded by what I think I experienced. Am I suffering from heat-induced hallucinations? The warmth of my palm leeches into the bronze disk, which seems to amplify the temperature until it almost burns my skin. I open my hand and let the medallion dangle from its hemp cord. The metal reflects the sunlight, though its tarnished surface dulls the effect.

A lump hardens in my throat. I swallow, but that lump won’t budge.

Okay, not a hallucination. Unless I’ve sunk so far into the deep end that I can’t tell reality from fantasy anymore. The medallion swings side to side, over and over, the image of the wolf moving with it. The bronze disk commands my focus and, unable to tear my gaze away, I let my eyes shift left, right, left, right, in time with the medallion.

The world tilts around me.

A wave of dizziness crashes over me, and I stagger sideways, flailing for a handhold but finding none. My right hand still clutches the medallion’s cord, so tight that my knuckles ache and my nails dig into my palm. The spinning sensation quickens, the world gyrating as if I’ve hopped onto one of those Tilt-A-Whirl rides at a carnival. Nausea surges in my stomach, the pressure of it forcing my gorge high in my throat. Oh God, I’m about to vomit.

I stumble out of the alley, careening like a drunken cowboy, my vision suddenly blurred. Darkness envelops me. An impulse too strong to deny compels me onward through total blackness while my heart hammers in my chest. Adrenaline scorches through my veins, and I know it’s the only thing keeping me on my feet. A seductive abyss beckons me. I recognize that if I give in to the abyss, I’ll fall to the ground unconscious, vulnerable to whatever the hell is happening to me.

I bump into a barrier, lose my balance, and slump to my knees in the dirt, breathless, my ears ringing.

“There she is!”

“Oh my God! Kylie!”

Familiar voices pull me out of the viscous blackness that gropes at my flesh. My vision lightens, and blurry shapes coalesce into people and objects. Jenna and Megan are racing toward me from the other side of the ghost town’s main street, followed close behind by a bald man I don’t recognize.

I blink slowly, drawing one deep breath after another. Where am I? On the ground, I realize, crouched at the end of the saloon’s porch. When I tip my head back, I can see the porch railing.

“Are you okay?” Megan asks, her voice fraught with anxiety. She drops to her knees beside me. “We were totally freaked out. Where’d you go?”

Jenna kneels in front of me, her eyes wide, her face pale. “Girl, where have you been? You scared us half to death, disappearing like that.”

“What?” I say, still too dazed to understand anything. I rub my temples, but my friends’ reactions seem out of proportion. “I was only gone a few minutes.”

“Minutes?” Jenna says. “You disappeared for three freaking hours, Kylie.”

Hours? No, it can’t have been that long. I glance over my shoulder at the alley—which is not there. No more than a few feet separates the saloon from the general store, and another structure backs up to the buildings I’m crouched between right now. No alley.

A bone-deep chill penetrates me down to my soul.

“Don’t you remember anything?” Jenna asks.

I shake my head. Sure, I remember stuff—but nothing I can admit to remembering. They’ll think I’ve gone bonkers. “I could swear it was only a few minutes.”

“We’re getting you the hell out of this place.”

Megan and Jenna seize my arms, urging me to get up. Jenna hooks her arm around mine while Megan does the same on the other side of me. Supported by my friends, I let them lead me out into the street, to where the bald man stands wringing his hands.

“Ms. Drummond,” he says, “I’m Al Bridger, the manager here. We’ve been searching for you for hours. Nothing like this has ever happened before in the whole history of Wrathrock Ghost Town. Please accept our sincerest apologies.”

I manage a weak smile. “I must’ve gotten dehydrated and wandered off. It’s my fault.”

“We have a medic on staff.” Bridger waves toward the boarding house. “Let me give you a room here, and our medic can take a look at you.”

“No thanks.” The mere thought of sticking around here makes me uneasy. And yet, I feel a strange thrill at the prospect too. “I just want to leave. I’m okay, promise.”

“Then may I give you girls a ride back into town? I have a Land Rover. It’s much more comfortable than the stagecoach.”

I nod, letting him know I’m cool with that idea. Another bumpy, bone-rattling ride in the quaint stagecoach does not appeal to me. Shaking off my friends’ arms, I trail Al Bridger down the street, between two buildings, and into a parking area where a Land Rover awaits. Soon, I’ll be back in my nice cool hotel room. Tomorrow, we will all head back to the university, and I can immerse myself in ornithology again, forgetting this freaky day ever happened.

A gust of wind blusters past me, whipping my hair around my face. I lift a hand to brush it away.

The medallion dangles from my fingers.

“Where did you get that?” Megan asks, pointing at the bronze disk. “And what on earth is it?”

I swallow hard and stuff the thing in my pocket. “It’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

Chapter Two

Kylie

I lie flat on my back, arms at my sides, fingers drumming on the blanket. My mind refuses to calm down and let me get some rest. In the big bed next to mine, Jenna snores softly, and Megan mumbles in her sleep. I’d volunteered to crash on a foldaway bed since the hotel had been booked up, except for one available room which has a single queen-size bed. Jenna had offered me one of her sleeping pills, saying I must need it after my “freaky ordeal.” I declined her offer. Taking a pill won’t erase what I experienced back in Wrathrock. I still feel…weird.

So yeah, it looks like no sleep for me tonight.

My mind keeps replaying it all in ultra-HD clarity. The cowboy in the wicked-cool leather coat. The muscles I could just make out under his clothes. That equally awesome hat. He’d looked like the quintessential Wild West outlaw, strong and virile and sexy as hell.

Except he was a hallucination.

My skin itches like I’ve brushed against poison ivy or something. I haven’t, though, and this itch feels unlike anything caused by skin irritation. It prickles deep under the surface. I try not to scratch, but the sensation gets stronger and itchier, and I need to scrape my nails on my skin, need it so badly that I’m squirming and gritting my teeth. I fist my hands over my belly and take slow, deep breaths while I will the itching to stop. This room has gotten stuffy, which always makes my skin prickly. That must be the reason for it, though I’ve never had this strong a reaction to a stuffy room before.

I swing my feet off the bed, slipping them into my blue plaid slippers. The silky blue fabric of my short satin nightie slides over my skin as I push up off the bed. One of the spaghetti straps falls off my shoulder, and I push it back into place. A faint draft teases my skin from mid-thigh down to my ankles, and on my shoulders and arms too, eliciting goosebumps.

How can I get cold right after realizing the stuffy room is making me itchy?

The draft whispers over me, around me, through me, like a ghost trying to touch me and make contact. Bullshit. I’m still in the grips of a mental freak-out, that’s all.

But I don’t feel freaked out.

Searching the dimly lit room, I spot my robe where I’d left it draped over the foot of the bed. Shrugging it on, I tie the belt and pad over to the window. In the glow of the moon, I can see the other buildings nearby. Our room sits on the backside of the hotel where the sulfurous illumination of the streetlights in the parking lot can’t reach. Vacant scrubland stretches away from the hotel toward the dark, hulking shapes of the mountains in the distance.

The chill I felt a minute ago has vanished.

And my skin itches again.

I grasp the window sash with both hands and thrust it upward. Thank goodness this is an older hotel that still has windows that open. Cool night air wafts over and around me, kissing my arms and my throat, chilling my lips. The moon hangs high in the sky, full and bright. If I got out my binoculars, I’m sure I could make out all the big geologic features on the moon. I plant my palms on the windowsill, leaning into them, and inhale a lungful of fresh air.

A wolf’s howl echoes across the landscape, distant but clear, full of a longing that stabs a pain into my chest.

Oh come on. Now I’m getting emotional about a wolf howling? Sheesh, girl, maybe you should take that sleeping pill after all.

The wolf howls again, the mournful sound stretching on and on until it finally fades away.

A tingle rushes over my skin, raising every hair on my body. Find him.

The voice that whispers the command into my mind is not my voice. Something outside of me has crept in to whisper in my thoughts. It’s crazy. I must be crazy. But the wolf’s call has burrowed inside me so deep that it touches my soul. I need to find that beast. Right now.

No, no, no, I’m not crazy enough to do that. Absolutely not.

Another howl echoes across the landscape.

Find him.

I can’t resist the call any longer. Something overtakes me, like a wild spirit has possessed me, and I can’t stop my feet from carrying me out of the room. I grab the medallion the shaman gave me and drop it into the pocket of my robe while I tiptoe out the door, easing it shut so the latch makes only the barest of clicks. Then I race down the stairs, because the elevator would take too damn long, and fly down the first-floor hallway to the side door. By the time the door shuts, I’m barreling down the main street, out of town and into the night that’s lit only by the moon’s glow.

Suddenly, I stop. Breathing hard, my pulse racing, I glance around. Where am I going? The nearest place is Wrathrock, but the ghost town is half a mile away. Running, or even walking, that far in fuzzy plaid slippers seems like total insanity.

The wolf howls again.

I can’t fight the impulse. It itches deep inside me, and I have no choice. The spirit possessing me takes control again, propelling me to gallop down the dirt road, my arms and legs pumping, my lungs burning. Get there, hurry, get there. Sweat streams down my temples, dampens my hair, and trickles between my breasts. And still, I cannot stop.

At the edge of the ghost town, I stumble to a halt. I’m breathing so hard my ears have started to ring, and I wobble slightly from the wooziness brought on by my desperate flight. Okay, I’m here. Now what?

The world tilts around me like one of those carnival rides, the way it had earlier when I’d seen—thought I’d seen—the mysterious cowboy. This time, the world keeps tilting more and more wildly until it’s whirling around me so fast that I can’t see through the spinning blur. My stomach lurches, shooting bile up into my throat. Wind erupts around me, lashing my hair to my face, and an unearthly roar deafens me. My legs buckle. I hit the ground hard, pain spiking through my knees, my breathing so hectic that I might be hyperventilating.

And I collapse face-first onto the dirt street of Wrathrock.

How long I’m out, I don’t know. My long journey back toward consciousness starts with my ears. I hear unfamiliar voices saying things I can’t make out at first, then my brain finally remembers how to interpret words.

“Is she dead?”

“Nah. Look, Silas, her eyes are movin’.”

Something nudges me. A foot, maybe?

“Yer right, Arlo,” the first voice says. “She ain’t dead. But where’d she come from?”

“Don’t know. The way she’s dressed, she’s gotta be a saloon girl.”

The other person—man?—grunts. “His Highness didn’t say he got a new girl. And why in tarnation is she out here flat on the ground?”

“Girl’s drunk as a skunk, that’s why.”

I hear a sniffing sound near my ear, then one of the men speaks close to my face. “She ain’t drunk. Smells like woman stuff. Parfoom water or somethin’.”

“Get away from her!” shouts another voice, one farther away and much deeper. The man speaks with an authoritative tone as if he’s used to people doing whatever he says. There’s something odd about his voice, but I can’t quite figure it out.

Scuffling suggests the two men who’d been examining me have moved away.

My muscles decide to start functioning again, so I open my eyes and heave myself into a sitting position. My legs are bent under me, and I need to keep a hand on the ground for support. Whatever happened, it’s left me shaky. I blink swiftly until my vision clears.

Light emanates from the buildings that line the street, revealing the men who have gathered around me. Two scruffy-looking men in rumpled cowboy-type clothes stand to one side of me, eying me like I’m a fresh side of beef they want to cook up and devour.

A third man, who must be the one who shouted at the other two, saunters up to me and tips his head side to side like he’s studying me. The light behind him casts his front in shadow. His hat shades his face, so I can’t make out his features.

“What have you done?” he snarls at the other two.

“Nothin’. We heard a noise, turned around, and there she was.”

The man with the authoritative voice angles slightly to the side to glare at the other two. Light spills over his face.

My jaw drops. Holy shit. It’s the mysterious cowboy I’d seen this afternoon, the one who vanished into thin air. I hadn’t seen his face the first time, I but recognize his clothes and the way he carries himself, not to mention his muscles. This can mean only one thing. I’ve gone certifiably insane.

The man in the wicked-cool leather coat kneels in front of me, his gray eyes narrowed and his mouth compressed into a hard slash. His light-brown hair is mostly hidden under his hat.

He sweeps his gaze over my entire body.

My robe has fallen open, and my nightie has ridden up so it barely covers my privates.

The mystery man’s tongue glides across his lower lip. His nostrils flare. He shuts his eyes for a heartbeat, then aims his steely gaze at me. “How did you get here?”

“I-I don’t know. I started walking from town and then I got dizzy, and I woke up here.”

“You are in town,” he says. “Where did you come from?”

My brain, at last, realizes what’s odd about his voice and relays the information to me. He has a British accent.

The way he’s staring at me shivers warmth through me even while I feel like scrambling away from him. “I came from the university. My friends and I thought it might be fun to see the ghost town. I-I don’t know how I got here, and I had no idea anybody worked in this park at night.”

He keeps staring at me with that hard expression for so long that I feel the need to tug my robe closed to cover myself. “Sorry if I interrupted your show.”

The man leans in so close that his nose almost brushes mine. He sniffs once, then pulls in a big breath through his nostrils.

And he growls.

The sound is soft and probably not noticeable to anybody else, but I heard it. This guy growled. Seriously.

He grabs my arms and gets up, hoisting me up with him. With his hands around my wrists, he pulls me close. “You don’t belong here, little girl. But since you have deigned to enter my domain, you belong to me.” He flashes the hottest glare I’ve ever seen at the other men. “Go back to the hellhole you call home, both of you.”

A crowd of men and women pour out of a building I suddenly realize is the saloon. They all freeze when they see me and the man who has me in his clutches.

He slings an arm around my waist, crushing me to his hard body, and scans the crowd. Then he hollers, “No one will touch this woman. She is my property. Understand?”

Murmurs and nodding heads indicate they get it.

I gaze up at the man to whose body I’m plastered. I feel every one of his muscles. “Who are you?”

“Sheriff Nathaniel Fortescue.”

“My name is Kylie.” I swallow, but the tightness in my throat lingers. “Kylie Drummond. Where am I?”

He bends his head closer to mine, his stubble rasping against my cheek. “You are in the Devil’s Outlands, little girl. Better known as Hell on earth.”

Chapter Three

Nathaniel

What am I doing with this woman? I would prefer to stay away from her, but I have no choice in the matter. Now that the townsfolk have seen her, she will become prey. Yes, she might be prey to me too, but unlike the miscreants around us, I won’t rip her to pieces for the pleasure of it. I have only one choice to save this strange girl’s life.

I sweep her into my arms and march toward the saloon, straight through the swinging doors, past the bar and the patrons seated on stools or at tables. Every drunken face jerks up to stare at us. Some of the men sneer and snigger. The few women in this den of debauchery scowl or smirk. They will be quite annoyed with me, but I have less than a thought to spare for their ilk. The opinions of whores and blackguards mean nothing to me.

“Put me down,” says the woman in my arms. She wriggles but can’t get free. “I said put me down, you caveman.”

I’ve been called much worse. If she intended to wound me, she will need to choose much sharper words than that.

“Silence, child,” I snarl as I stomp up the stairs.

The girl crosses her arms over her chest. “You are so rude. And my name is Kylie, not ‘child,’ so please stop calling me that.”

I have never heard the name Kylie before. It sounds like a boy’s pet name.

She kicks her feet, so I lock my arm around her knees. Lips puckered, eyes narrowed, she tries to beat me with her little fists. I roll her toward me so her arms are pinned between our bodies.

“Give up the struggle,” I hiss under my breath. “You cannot escape me.”

The creature in my arms sinks her teeth into my nose.