Free Once Upon a Haunted Moon (The Keeper Saga) by K.R. Thompson

happened to be in the Deadland when she escaped, had been an immense help. But in simple truth, she had been the one who fed — her sister had not, and they both knew it.
    The boy with the golden eyes, however, had been a most worthy adversary. He fought valiantly even though he knew the odds lay not in his favor. Still, it took quite a bit of effort on her part, and had the other wolf people been present, she may very well have lost her war for revenge.
    The boy’s eyes were as gold as the sun. Mirror images of the eyes of the one so long ago who had trapped her and kept her prisoner…
    No matter now, she reminded herself as she took a deep breath. The strongest of the wolf people had been no match for her. The others would soon follow and she would take them even more easily. There was only one who might still have the magic to stop her…
    She stood over the boy’s body, watching as he slowly stirred, and his golden eyes partly opened.
    “I shall kill you soon. How your death is dealt, either slow with pain, or quick, shall depend on your answer, so think of yourself and tell me now…
    Where is the White Wolf?”
    ***
    I decided I didn’t like Tori’s combat boots. Or at least, my wolf didn’t.
    At least not when the huge, hard leather things jammed into my ribs.
    Somehow we ended up in unanimous consent that we should meet the others at Wynter’s house…just in case they needed our help convincing her to talk to them. I’m not sure what kind of help we were going to offer. As far as reinforcements go, ours weren’t exactly stellar — we had one wolf who hadn’t even been on an official hunt, one wolf who had been acting really weird ever since he stepped on the briar in the Deadland, one girl who was trying to hold it together over her boyfriend’s disappearance and tended to space out and see stuff no one else could see, and another who wore clunky leather boots and just happened to show up and didn’t know squat about the magic world.
    We should have thought our plan through better than we had. Nikki suggested Ed and I switch to wolves and go through the woods, letting her and Tori ride piggyback. In theory, we’d get there faster that way.
    We agreed, and I started to hope that I’d have Nikki on my back. But I guess that’s the thing about hope, normally you don’t get what you’re hoping for. Somehow, I ended up with the girl with hard boots who was clinging to the fur between my shoulders so hard I thought it would soon be tearing out by the roots.
    Nikki, of course, accustomed to riding Adam’s wolf all over the forest, sat up easily on Ed’s cream-colored back as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
    I whined, hoping Tori would take the hint to watch how Nikki was doing it.
    Apparently, my point came across loud and clear, because she snapped, “Quit complaining, I can’t help it. I feel like I’m getting ready to fall off!”
    I wriggled, causing her left boot to bounce against my ribs, then I yelped for emphasis.
    “Fine, I’ll take my boots off, but you have to promise we’ll come back and get them. Just stop for a minute…”
    Ed turned, and waited for us as Tori hopped off my back, and pulled the boots off, setting them under a tree to get on the way back, “I hope I don’t need shoes wherever it is we’re going.”
    It ended up that we all needed more than just shoes when we showed up to the old shack by the railroad tracks. Fire-retardant suits would have been handy, actually.
    The spelled house was fully engulfed in flames.
    Ed and I switched back from our wolves as we watched the fire department pull the hoses around the shack in an effort to contain the fire.
    I saw the others standing by the tracks. Apparently, the fire had started before they had arrived, too, because Erik and the cousins had matching strange expressions on their faces that seemed to translate into, “Well, now what are we supposed to do?”
    As we walked out of the woods, we heard one