Chapter 18 · Thirty Hours

"Don't touch me." A hand clamps around my wrist from behind before I can drop the shard. Blood slips over my palm and spatters the floor.

Rafe stands three feet away with gold eyes bleeding red at the edges. His claws are out. The mirror-walker vanished the second I said I'd rewrite the pact, leaving me alone with a half-feral wolf and a stranger's grip on my arm.

Then the stranger pulls me backward.

"Sparrow."

My breath catches.

Nobody's called me that in eight years. Nobody alive.

I twist hard and drive my elbow back. He catches it before it reaches his ribs. Dark hair. Dirt-caked boots. A torn jacket. The scar cutting through his left eyebrow.

The same scar I saw in every family photograph.

"Jonah?"

His fingers tighten around my wrist. "Stay behind me."

"You're supposed to be dead."

"We'll discuss that after the wolf stops trying to tear your throat out."

Rafe lunges.

Jonah shoves me toward the counter and moves. He crosses the room in two steps, silver chain flashing from his jacket. It wraps around Rafe's wrists just before the claws reach him.

Rafe roars.

The windows shake.