“Fated mate?” Tilla beamed, clapping both hands together while suspended three inches above the stone floor. Her windpipe was entirely compressed by his iron knuckles, but she managed an octave usually reserved for songbirds. “Oh, goodness! What an adorable nickname for an intruder! Is that a traditional Blood Court greeting, or are you just remarkably tactile?” Tarkis did not drop her. His pale irises contracted to needlepoints. “I watched it roll past your teeth. The Blood-Pearl of the Nocturne Dynasty. Two thousand years of dynastic supremacy, dissolved in your esophagus.” “Poof! Gone!” Tilla squeaked, batting long, lush eyelashes that had literally just grown in during her digestive apotheosis. She wiggled her polished boots. “Honestly, my Lord Tall-and-Brooding, it probably slipped through the floorboards. You know how antique masonry gets. Or maybe it dematerialized into the ether? Meanwhile, what you’re smelling is purely good breeding. I’m a late-blooming wolf. A very late bloomer. It’s a glandular condition!” “A glandular condition,” he repeated flatly. He didn't release her throat. Instead, he pulled her closer, his nostrils flaring against the curve of her jaw. His fangs pricked his lower lip as he took in the scent of crushed sugar lilies, fresh rain, and the unmistakable, pulsing core of an ancient lunar engine ticking beneath her ribs. His spine stiffened with revulsion. “You reek of stolen eternity and spun sugar. It makes me want to burn a library.” “Such passion! We should definitely exchange calling cards once you put me down.” His grip snapped open. Tilla dropped, landing with the graceful poise of an apex predator—a terrifying novelty for someone who, until twenty minutes ago, regularly tripped over flat rugs. Inside her stomach, the pearl gave a low, resonant burp of celestial heat that threatened to singe her corset from the inside out. She swallowed hard, slapped a vacuous smile across her lips, and smoothed her skirt. “Now then,” Tarkis said, dusting off his charcoal-velvet cuffs, though his fingers still twitched with the urge to snap her spine. “The tether prevents me from leaving you more than twelve paces behind without my organs liquefying. You are coming with me to the Sunspire Citadel. If the relic is merely resting in your stomach, I will extract it with a silver lancet. If your body has incorporated it, I will find a way to flay it out of your bone marrow.” “Road trip!” Tilla chirped. “I simply love carriage rides with murderous aristocrats.” They had barely taken three strides toward the vault’s fractured exit when a rustle behind the broken limestone urns exploded into chaos. “Unhand her, you blood-sucking corpse!” a voice shrieked. Out stumbled Gilly. Or rather, out stumbled what should have been Gilly, if Gilly’s panic-response hadn’t violently short-circuited her shifting glands. Her bones cracked, her trousers shredded, and with a wet, undignified pop, Tilla’s fiercely loyal best friend transformed entirely into a thirty-pound, mottled-gray goose with feet the size of dinner plates. *“HONK!”* Tarkis paused, an eyebrow arching. “What is that hideous poultry doing?” *“HONK HONK HONK!”* With wings flared wide like bat banners, Gilly charged across the flagstones. Her black beak locked onto the immaculate, silk-stockinged ankle of the supreme commander of the Nocturne Court. She clamped down and twisted with the feral rage of a tavern brawler. “Unholy mother of dusk,” Tarkis hissed, his composure fracturing instantly as he tried to shake his boot free. The goose held on, flapping wildly, buffeting his tailored shins with hard, feathered wings. “Get this vermin off my leg before I decapitate it!” “Gilly, sweet pea, no! He’s our new friend!” Tilla dove forward, scooping the hissing, violently vibrating waterfowl into her arms. Gilly’s beak snapped inches from Tarkis’s patrician nose, spraying fine droplets of spit onto his antique cravat. “She’s very protective! And quite athletic for an aquatic bird!” “She is a roast dinner waiting to happen,” Tarkis snarled, wiping his neck with a silk kerchief, though his eyes kept darting back to Tilla’s waist, entirely unable to sever the invisible pull dragging him toward her hips. “Stuff the creature into a basket. We have an entrance to make.” *** The Grand Rotunda of the Sunspire Citadel blazed with polished quartz, gilded balconies, and posturing warlords. Hundreds of high-ranking Lycan nobles, dressed in silks, furs, and ceremonial armor, drank imported vintage while sizing up competitors for the Council trials. At the center of the terrace, holding court like an emperor, stood Alpha Karnok Val-Tir. He had his arm draped casually over the shoulders of Tilla’s cousin, Selyse, who wore a diamond necklace that had once belonged to Tilla’s grandmother. Karnok was laughing, his square jaw tilted up, boasting loudly to the Iron-Ridge elders about how his pack’s tribute was pure, unadulterated strength now that their dead weight had been cleanly purged. “A pack must be lean,” Karnok was booming, lifting a crystal flute of amber wine. “The weak fall behind. It is nature’s will. My late mate, tragic as her passing was, simply lacked the vitality to—” The brass doors groaned open. The herald’s voice cracked across the hall, carrying an unmistakable vibration of sheer panic. “Announcing... Lord Tarkis of House Morvane. And his... guest.” The room dropped dead silent. High vampires did not attend Lycan summits unless they intended to burn the city down. Walking down the grand marble staircase, looking like an ancient nightmare woven from midnight and bad intentions, was Tarkis. But what made three dozen Alphas drop their glasses was not the vampire. It was the woman hooked casually onto his arm. Tilla wore a gown of shimmering, midnight-blue silk that clung to curves Karnok had spent three years mocking as frail and flat. Her hair spilled down her back like spun copper, gleaming with an unearthly, liquid luster. Her skin possessed a golden, radiant flush that literally threw light onto the stones around her. In her left hand, tucked casually under her elbow like an expensive clutch, was a plump, furious goose hissing with bared tongue at the assembled nobility. Tilla swept a dazzling, empty smile across the crowd, her gaze landing squarely on Karnok. Karnok’s hand went limp. The crystal flute slipped from his fingers, shattering across the white marble, splashing expensive vintage all over Selyse’s embroidered slippers. He took half a step forward, his mouth opening, his skin turning the dull, gray color of wet ash. “Tilla?” he choked out. The name scraped from his throat, tiny and broken. “Oh, hello, darling!” Tilla called out, waving her fingers in a cheerful little flutter. “Surprise! Turns out I didn’t die in the ravine after all! Such a silly misunderstanding. And look—I made the most marvelous new acquaintance on the way!” Tarkis didn't smile, but his hand moved down, settling possessively over Tilla’s waist. The gesture was casual, brutal, and made every Lycan in the room bristle with instinctual fury. A vampire touching an Alpha’s former woman—and clearly marking her with his proximity. Karnok’s knuckles bleached white. The naked shock curdling Karnok's features tasted sweeter than honey wine. He had discarded her like refuse; now he was watching a living god escort her through the gates of power. “You...” Karnok rasped, taking another lurching step toward the stairs. “What is this? How are you—” *CLANG.* Two heavy, runic halberds snapped down across the archway, blocking Tilla and Tarkis from stepping onto the main floor. Four Citadel inquisitors in obsidian plate stepped forward, their faces obscured by mirrored visors. “Halt,” the lead guard barked, holding up an iron chalice filled with shimmering, silver quicksilver. “By decree of the High Council, all non-Council entrants must submit to the Blood Scrying. Any foreign magic, stolen relic, or demonic resonance will be purged on contact.” The guard thrust the chalice toward Tilla’s chest. Beneath her corset, the swallowed relic pulsed violently, reacting to the proximity of the inquisitor’s testing stone like a caged star about to detonate.

Goose on the Loose