It was a picturesque inn they'd found, a historic country house with the interior transformed into modern-day suites, and their room was very nice. Big windows filled the air with warm, buttery light. Fresh flowers added color and sweetness. Outside, trucks rumbled on the highway. The smells of hash browns and coffee drifted over from the diner next door. In the face of such a simple morning, the events of last night bewildered like a bad dream, and Alice wished she could set them aside as such.

She knew her battered body needed rest; her ribs had stopped shifting with each breath, but they still ached, and some of the bruises on her skin were as big as her palm. Yet every time she closed her eyes, images rose up savage as teeth, and her exhaustion threatened to shatter into something frantic.

The sound of the lock turning in the door broke through her grey thoughts, and she glanced up as Colton stepped inside. He seemed miles away from the vicious creature of the night before, instead just one man among many in his simple shirt, jeans, and boots. In the bright sunlight, his eyes looked very sharp and the fresh stubble on his jaw very dark.

Then she realized he had a white bakery bag, the bottom already stained with grease. "Donuts?" she said, surprised to feel herself smile.

He nodded. "Thought you might be hungry."

Lingering tension filled his movements as he sat beside her on the bed, but his attention felt easy, comfortable. He really didn't seem to think she'd done anything stupid last night.

When she made no move to open the bag, he said, "How are you?"

"My ribs feel better." Her fingers drifted to his t-shirt, all too aware of the fresh scars hidden beneath. "What about you? Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." Terse words, yet they held an expectant undertone, a readiness to answer anything else she asked. When she merely nodded, surprise flickered in his eyes. "No more questions?"

She shook her head, quiet until his hand caught hers, gentle against the bruises on her knuckles. "I thought you hated explaining things."

"I do. But I like your curiosity."

It coaxed another dim smile out of her. "I'm just really tired. Maybe I'll try to sleep."

He studied her intently, but nodded. "Rest as long as you want. We're safe here. I took care of everything from last night."

In bed, the heaviness of her eyelids spread to the rest of her body. This time, a thick numbness protected her from the torment of memory, pulling her down into darkness until it felt like her limbs were trapped in tar.

The oak trees appeared first. Ancient specimens, bleached as exposed bone, the bark on their trunks so withered that it seemed like wrinkled faces peered at her. Such attention felt suffocating, and she turned away, looking up at a sky as black as pitch. No sun. No moon. Nothing that could guide her out of this grim forest. She was in the shadow world.

Despite the eerie stillness, familiarity gnawed at her heart. The red, uneven earth erupting in rock and root, the gasps of space between the shrubs and sticks that tangled together in untamed masses... this wasn't a forest she had ever raced through as a wolf. Instead, it lived in her nightmares, preserved itself in her memories.

This was where her mother had left her.

Light winked. Then she realized she was looking at the side mirror of a car, fractured yet held in place by plants that had grown over the roof. The car itself was hardly more than a shell—paint worn away and windows punctured through with vines—and yet she still knew it. Of course she did; she had screamed in it for days, had bitten at the fabric seats like an animal.

A sick pit formed in her stomach as she approached her mother's car. In the mundane world, it had been towed away soon after Alice had been discovered. Examined for evidence and found lacking, it had then been returned to her father and quickly sold. Yet here it looked untouched, left to decay among the weeds and manzanita. When Alice ran a hand along the roof, it stirred up flakes of rust. The backseat still had the stain from where she'd once spilled apple juice.

She looked up again, unerringly finding two distant oaks that leaned into each other, branches twining together like fingers. She had stared at those trees for hours after her mother had disappeared between them, searching for the slightest hint of movement, for the smallest sign that she was coming back. Had waited, cried, then finally kicked and writhed her way out of the car seat. Yet she had also stayed put, because that was what her mother had said to do and she had been too scared to disobey.

I'll be right back.

Standing there in the shadow world, a place she hated for exposing her deepest vulnerabilities to those who only wanted to feed on her fear or humiliation, she knew that whatever waited inside that dark mouth of the forest would hurt her. There would be nothing tender. Nothing loving. Just a terrible truth that would reveal and mutilate at the same time, used like a razor blade against flesh.

But what if she's there? Can I really turn away when I've always wanted to go back to this part of my past and learn what I couldn't the first time?

In the utter silence, her first step sounded overloud against the dead leaves. Her next was quieter, as was her third. By the time she reached the two oaks, her heartbeat overwhelmed everything else, hard and fast as she crossed the invisible line into forestland she had never been able to see.

No squirrels or birds. No insects. Just straw-colored grass scratching against her legs and branches catching at her hair and shoulders. It was then she realized her clothes were gone, and that dirt streaked her bared skin as if she'd already walked for hours. The sky gleamed like black ink as the ground grew uneven, angling upwards.

Just as the first wisps of mist drifted between the trees, something stirred at the edge of her senses. A murmur that matched her pulse. It urged her closer while she pushed past shrubs, avoided poison oak, broke branches that blocked her way. She felt herself sweating.

Then she reached a point where the ground plunged down to a dried river bed, the worn rocks leaving each step treacherous. Even as she stopped, the voice cleared into one word repeated over and over.

Alice. Alice! AlicealicealicealiceALICE.

She looked across to the other bank and caught a hint of movement among a cluster of trees growing on a massive, rotting log, their roots weaving over its surface like a net. In the shadows of their overhanging branches, a figure shifted, the curve of a back becoming apparent along with bony shoulders.

Alice felt her breath constrict into something tight and fast, felt a question burn in her throat. Mother?

She scrambled down the steep earth and over the rocks, heedless and shaking. At the edge of the other bank, she paused, uncertainty sharpening her desperation.

The figure turned as if to peer at her, still hidden in the gloom. Silent until Alice took the final step needed to bring her to the edge of the shadows. "You found me at last."

Disappointment seared her heart like a brand. There was nothing familiar about that voice. "You're not the person I was looking for."

A chuckle. "That's life for you."

"Are you with the coven?" said Alice, but she suspected the answer even as she spoke the words. She sensed age and an odd, petty glee in the figure, not the dismissal and malice she was coming to expect.

"Them? They're nothing. Just some empty rituals and a grubby king. Although, I'm very glad you squabbled with them and made your presence known. I'd given up all hope."

Alice frowned, only half-understanding what that meant. "Who are you?"

"At this point, hardly anything." Then the figure leaned forward and revealed itself.

Empty eye sockets. Thin, grey hair barely attached to the scalp. A horrible grin made by exposed teeth. Alice found herself looking at a creature that was little more than a skeleton and some skin.

She swallowed hard, refusing to lose her composure. "I heard you calling me. You knew my name."

"Of course. Doesn't every grandmother wish to see her granddaughter?" Then the figure spread its arms wide, a grotesque mimicry of a hug.

Alice flinched back. "My grandmother died years ago. They found her remains near her cabin."

"So skeptical! I didn't say I was alive. But it's possible to linger beyond the body. To wait and hope for some way back. Or do you dismiss the idea of ghosts as well?"

A shiver ran down her spine as she thought of Magdalene. It flared into a strange panic at the idea that this really could be her grandmother. As her gaze dropped to the damp earth around the figure, searching for some hint that it was at all true, the curve of bone among rotting leaves grew apparent. Only a few pieces were left, stained with age and covered in teeth marks. They'd been gnawed on.

"I believe in ghosts," she said in a low voice. "And it's obvious you're a witch."

The witch nodded. "Year after year, I've wasted away while waiting here. Starving down to petrified bone. You can't imagine what it feels like to shrivel up as the hunger digs in."

Alice jerked her chin at the scattered remains. "You caught something."

There was a moment of silence. The witch's jawbone quivered slightly before she said, "It was long ago, and not nearly enough. I'll always be like this unless you help me."

"I don't know if you're even really my grandmother. We never met. I wouldn't be able to recognize her, and I don't see how she could recognize me."

"You look like your mother. Especially the shape of your nose and mouth."

Something must have changed in Alice's expression, because the witch gave a laugh that sounded like a wheeze. "I see that's a sore spot. So, it's only her that you care about. Why not your old granny as well?"

"She ate people," said Alice, still shocked that every witch she met expected her to accept that, and easily as well.

"And your mother helped. At least until she ran away and became some human's housewife." The witch's voice turned sour. "I suppose you've turned out much the same. Who's ruling your life? A nice lawyer? A bank branch manager? I'm sure it's someone who doesn't understand the sweet taste of blood. Who just wants to breed enough well-heeled children to fill his house."

Alice stared at the witch, fresh horror surging from within. Anyone from the coven would have known about Colton and what he meant to her. This wasn't a trick. This was her grandmother.

"You sound like the others," she murmured. "Throwing all the insults you can and then expecting me to just take it."

The words seemed to infuriate the witch, for she lurched from the shadows, jumbled from the ribs down in the way of bones unearthed from a grave. "Are you scolding me? You, the little wretch living warm and well-fed while I'm suffering out here? You're as selfish as your mother. I called her for so long, trying to reach through her little haven."

Alice met her grandmother's anger with a streak of her own, words tumbling out high and hot. "Did she ever respond? Is that why she left me that day?"

"Is that what you want? Answers?"

"Yes. I want to know if she still alive. If she's been dead for years. I want to know what happened. I want to understand so I can finally move on." Her heart felt like it was being split in half, in agony from the possibility of finding out as much as the terror of remaining ignorant.

Her grandmother, however, had fallen very calm. The shadows in her eye sockets flickered as she said, "Help me, and I'll help you."

A strange sound came out of Alice. A laugh, she realized, brief and breathless. "Is that all it is? Just a trade in need?"

"Don't sneer at the chance like a spoiled brat. It's a good start to becoming precious to each other. You'll get your answers, and I'll build back my power."

Despite the stark differences, Alice was reminded of the preening witches she had already faced. As she watched the pitiful figure before her, trying to find some answer that revealed the roaring in her heart, she suddenly said, "I found the wolf pelt in your cabin."

"Oh? And what happened?"

"It worked."

For a moment, the raspy breathing stilled. "How?"

She didn't have a better answer than, I just wanted to escape.

Her lack of response drew out an annoyed huff. "Do you still have it with you?"

"No. And I don't need it now." Simple words, but she suddenly realized the truth behind them, and realized how her hunger didn't match the witches she had met. She wasn't greedy for the power of controlling the world around her, for making dead skins twitch with life or hearts throb with envy. She already knew how false words could be and wanted no comfort in ones that worshiped her. The brilliance of a crown faded to nothing compared to the freedom of running beneath a full moon. Her lust was her own, good and bad.

She found herself stepping back, stepping away, raw but sure.

Her grandmother hissed, "Don't be a fool. That coven can't give you anything more than I could."

"I'm not joining the coven. I'm hunting them."

"Then that's it? You'll just turn your back on your old granny and leave?"

"I'm not like you. I don't want to be like you." Then Alice shook her head. "Don't call for me again. I won't answer."

The witch's voice rose. "Do you think I'll let you go that easy? After what happened with your mother, do you think I'll suffer through the same thing twice?"

Something charged the air between them. Alice bared her teeth, skin prickling. "You don't want me. You just want meat. I'm no one's prey."

Just as she turned around, ready to climb down the bank, she heard the witch chuckle. Her body tensed, but it was too late, the ground already crumbled beneath her, tumbling her down toward the dried river bed. She flailed, squeezing her eyes shut against the expected pain of flesh breaking against rock.

She landed hard, breathless and confused at the softness against her shoulder blades, at the pressure of a strap against her chest and stomach. Then she realized it was a seatbelt holding her stiff and still, and her eyelids snapped open. She was sitting in a car's backseat, held in place while branches raked against the filthy windshield.

"No," she whispered, realizing she was in her mother's car. Her arms were caught fast by vines that had grown through the windows. She felt frozen from head to toe. Then she screamed. "No!"

Her grandmother's voice filled her ears, a disembodied presence that remained calm and amused even as she started thrashing. "Blood returns to blood."

Alice just shrieked again, fighting against the restraints. "Let me out!"

"So much fussing. I chose my camp well. You're not in a place where anyone can find you, much less hear you."

She turned into a wild, heedless thing, snarling while clawing herself free of the seat belt and tearing into the vines with her teeth. They bled like something alive, but she only bit harder, frothing. "Not again! Never again."

Her grandmother cried out as if in pain as Alice ripped her hands from the bleeding plants and wrenched at the door. When it wouldn't open, she attacked the nearest window with the same frenzy. The sting of sliced fists meant nothing compared to the brittle crack of glass. It shattered, flooding her with blistering light.

She just crawled through, ignoring the hot agony of glass biting into her palms and scraping her sides, forcing herself forward until she half-fell, half-slithered to the ground. Panting, aware of the heavy smell of blood, she felt either sweat or tears run down her face even as her hair fell into her eyes.

Then her grandmother's voice cut through the air, sharp and shocked. "No. Not you. Not you."

Alice just shuddered, trying to crawl away from the car and the prickle of glass against her skin. When a scream rang out, thin and ragged, she only redoubled her efforts.

Then hands caught her, and now she was screaming, expecting the brittle hardness of bony limbs, the pressure of rotting skin shoving her back into her worst nightmare.

"Alice. Alice." A voice rough as a growl, a voice that her heart recognized through its animal panic.

She collapsed, now understanding what had happened, his name already on her lips. "Colton."

The world spun as he brushed hair back from her face, and then she realized he was leaning over her, that the softness of blankets and sheets pressed against her back. That she wore the fluffy robe she'd fallen asleep in, that the ceiling above glowed with warm morning light.

A simple nightmare?

Yet the idea faded from her mind even before she took in his bloodied state, and how his pupils were constricted to pinpoints. Then the throbbing of sliced skin and the grit of dirt between her toes sank into her senses, and she hissed out her next breath while gingerly sitting up.

"Alice," he repeated, now stroking the curve of her cheek, and she saw everything in his eyes that he never put into words. They looked very green against the blood on his face, but at that moment nothing about him seemed human.

"Was that really her?" she asked, knowing he could answer. Knowing that he would. "Was that my grandmother?"

"Yes."

She stared at the clotting trails on his jaw and throat. "Is that her blood?"

His voice darkened. "I will never be gentle with anyone who tries to hurt you."

It wasn't an apology, and she didn't want one. Instead, she started to reach for him, pausing only when she saw the fresh cuts on her arm. He noticed them, too, growling at their sluggish bleeding.

"It's okay," she said, and was surprised by how true that felt. "I'm okay."

He looked up from her wounds, his expression clear despite his silence. The killing rage lingered in his eyes, but she also saw a particular scrutiny that appeared whenever she tried to hide her pain and put on a pleasant mask.

"No," she said, catching his hand with hers. "I don't mean it like that. My body is hurt, but I'm not... not broken up over it. I'm too angry to be. No, I'm not even angry. I'm furious. She only saw me as something to use, just like the rest of them. I'm never going to get the answers I want. Not when they think they can use that to keep me meek and confused."

Then she did touch his face, running fingers along that dangerous jaw without a hint of repulsion, even when they came away sticky with her grandmother's blood. "I'm sick of asking questions and I'm sick of being laughed at."

He rarely smiled, even with her, but a new intensity warmed his gaze. "Ready to use your teeth?"

She nodded. "They're going to learn to leave me the hell alone."