The airstrip was nothing more than a strip of cracked asphalt cutting through a desolate stretch of forest, illuminated by the harsh, flickering beams of a few industrial floodlights. A sleek, black Gulfstream sat waiting at the end of the runway, its engines already whining with a low-frequency hum that Andrea could feel in the soles of her borrowed boots.
"Move, Andrea," Viktor commanded, his hand a heavy, constant presence on the small of her back.
Andrea stumbled, the oversized leather jacket he'd found under the floorboards threatening to swallow her whole. "I am moving! It's hard to maintain a brisk pace when I'm wearing three layers of wool and carrying the weight of a supernatural kidnapping on my conscience!"
She glanced back at the tree line. The silence of the woods felt wrong—too heavy, like the air was being held under pressure. "Viktor, that howling earlier... it was closer than the last one, wasn't it?"
Viktor didn't answer. He didn't have to. His blue eyes were scanning the perimeter with a predatory focus that made her skin prickle. He looked entirely different now than he had in the alley. The pallor of death was gone, replaced by a terrifying, high-voltage energy. He wasn't just healed; he was primed.
"Get to the stairs," he said, his voice dropping to that lethal, vibrating rasp. "Don't stop. Don't look back. Just get on the fucking plane."
"And what are you going to do? Stand here and look brooding until they get bored?"
"Andrea." He turned to her, his grip on her arm tightening. The gold was back in his eyes, swirling like a storm. "Go."
She opened her mouth to argue—it was her default setting, her only defense against the sheer terror rising in her throat—but the words died as a massive, dark shape vaulted over the perimeter fence.
Then another. And another.
They weren't the shadow-creatures from the alley. These were wolves. But they were the size of small horses, their fur matted with rain and grime, their eyes glowing with a sick, oily yellow light. They moved with a terrifying, liquid grace, circling the patch of light around the plane.
"Oh, fuck," Andrea whispered, her green eyes widening. "Those are... those are real. This is really happening. I'm not in a coma. I'm just about to be lunch."
"Get on the plane!" Viktor roared, shoving her toward the stairs.
One of the wolves, a massive beast with a scarred muzzle, lunged. It cleared thirty feet in a single bound, its jaws snapping inches from Andrea's heels as she scrambled up the metal steps.
"Viktor!" she screamed, spinning around at the top of the stairs.
Viktor didn't run. He stepped into the path of the scarred wolf.
Andrea watched, frozen, as the man she had stitched back together began to break.
It was a sound she would never forget—the wet, rhythmic crack-snap-pop of bones lengthening and shattering, only to reform in seconds. Viktor's spine arched, his charcoal trousers shredding as his body expanded. His dark brown hair seemed to bleed into his skin, replaced by a surge of thick, bristling fur.
He didn't scream. He let out a sound that started as a human groan and ended as a primal, earth-shaking roar.
In the span of five seconds, the man was gone. In his place stood a beast that looked like it had been carved from the very heart of a glacier.
He was enormous—nearly twice the size of the other wolves. His fur wasn't the matted grey or brown of the attackers; it was a pure, blinding white that seemed to drink in the floodlights. His blue eyes, now glowing with a brilliant, celestial fire, fixed on the lead attacker.
The White Wolf of Siberia.
"Jesus Christ," Andrea breathed, her knees hitting the deck of the plane. "He's a... he's a dog. A really, really big, terrifyingly beautiful dog."
The white wolf didn't look at her. He lunged.
The violence was sudden and absolute. The white wolf was a blur of ivory fury, his jaws snapping shut on the throat of the scarred attacker with a sound like a dry branch breaking. Blood—bright, hot, and red—sprayed across the white fur, but the beast didn't slow down. He tossed the dead wolf aside like a rag doll and turned on the other two.
It wasn't a fight; it was a slaughter. Viktor moved with a speed that Andrea's human eyes could barely track. He was a force of nature, a blizzard of teeth and claws.
One of the remaining hunters tried to circle around toward the plane, its yellow eyes locked on Andrea. She scrambled back into the cabin, her hands fumbling for anything—a fire extinguisher, a heavy bottle of Scotch—but before the beast could reach the stairs, a blur of white slammed into its side.
Viktor pinned the creature to the asphalt, his massive paws crushing its ribs. He leaned down, his muzzle inches from the hunter's face, and let out a low, vibrating snarl that made the plane's windows rattle. The hunter whimpered—a sound of pure, base terror—before Viktor ended it with a single, decisive snap.
Silence returned to the airstrip, broken only by the whine of the jet engines and the heavy, wet panting of the white wolf.
Viktor stood amidst the carnage, his white fur stained crimson. He turned his massive head toward the plane.
Andrea stared at him through the open door, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard it hurt. She should have been terrified. Every instinct she had left was telling her to lock the door and hope the pilot knew how to fly.
But as those glowing blue eyes met her green ones, she didn't see a monster. She saw the man who had looked at her in a rain-slicked alley and asked her to save him.
The white wolf stepped toward the stairs, his movements heavy. As he reached the bottom step, the transformation began to reverse.
It was even more gruesome to watch in reverse. The fur receded, the bones shivered back into human proportions, and the massive beast shrank down until Viktor was kneeling on the asphalt, naked, bloodied, and gasping for air.
Andrea didn't wait. She grabbed a blanket from the nearest seat and ran down the stairs.
"Viktor!" She threw the blanket over his shivering shoulders, her hands trembling as they touched his skin. He was still radiating that impossible heat. "You're... you're okay. You're human. Sort of."
Viktor looked up at her, his dark brown hair matted with blood, his blue eyes exhausted. "You... didn't leave."
"And go where? I don't have a passport, Viktor! And I'm pretty sure I'm a person of interest in a triple wolf-homicide now!" She grabbed his arm, hauling him to his feet. "Get on the plane. Before more of your 'friends' show up."
Viktor leaned on her, his weight immense, but he managed to stumble up the stairs and into the cabin. The door hissed shut behind them, sealing out the cold and the smell of death.
The interior of the jet was a world of cream leather, polished wood, and soft lighting. It was the pinnacle of human luxury, a stark, jarring contrast to the primal bloodbath that had just occurred on the tarmac.
A man in a sharp black suit—one of Viktor's men—stepped forward, his face an emotionless mask despite the blood on his boss. "Pakhan. We are ready for departure."
"Go," Viktor rasped.
He slumped into one of the oversized leather chairs, his head falling back. He looked at Andrea, who was standing in the middle of the aisle, covered in his blood and staring at him like he was an alien species.
"Welcome to the pack, Andrea," he murmured, his voice a faint, dark echo of the wolf's growl.
"I want that grilled cheese, Viktor," she snapped, though her voice was thick with unshed tears and pure, unadulterated shock. "And I want a very, very large drink. Because if I'm going to Russia with a man who turns into a polar bear on steroids, I am not doing it sober."
Viktor let out a weak, jagged laugh before his eyes slid shut, the jet lifting off into the dark, stormy sky.