Rose screamed as the windscreen imploded in a shower of glass. Branching antlers the color of ice stabbed through, nearly impaling her.
Rose made the fastest shift of her life. Her swan-self slid free of the seat belt as the monstrous antlers withdrew. With the speed of terror, Rose hurled herself out the shattered windscreen, leaping over the creature crouched on the buckled hood.
Polar bear, some oddly calm corner of her mind thought. But no, polar bears don’t have antlers—
Whatever it was, she thought for one heart-stopping second that it had grabbed her. The blizzard seized her outstretched wings, shaking her like a dog with a chew toy. She tumbled head-over-tail feathers, completely out of control.
Something smacked her out of the air. She smashed to the frozen ground, sliding, fetching up against something warm.
Legs.
“I’ve got the shifter!” Still half-stunned, Rose couldn’t resist as human hands grabbed her ankles, hauling her into the air. “Huh, it’s smaller than I—what the hell? It’s just a swan.”
“I don’t care what it is, hurry up and bind it!” yelled a second voice. Dangling upside-down, Rose had a confused glimpse of ice-blue light swirling around upraised hands. “I can’t hold my beast for much longer! I have to get it back to its cage before it breaks free!”
“I told the High Magus you were too weak to handle the wendigo,” the first man snapped. “You should be the one who has to shackle himself to this overgrown duck.”
“You really want to try to transfer familiars now? Just bind the damn bird! Unless you want to explain to the High Magus that you were too proud to carry out his orders?”
The first man heaved an irritated, put-upon sigh. “I swear, if any of you bastards dare to laugh about this…”
He switched to some foreign language, chanting out words that ran over Rose’s skin like ants. One of his hands groped for her right wing.
Unfortunately, the brief exchange had given Rose’s head time to clear.
“Just a swan?” Her beak turned the words into angry hisses and ear-splitting honks. The warlock howled as her wings smashed into his arm. “Just a swan?!”
Finding himself unexpectedly holding a very large, very awake, and very angry swan, the warlock made a very unwise decision.
He let go.
Birds were descended from dinosaurs. In this form, Rose was a lot more closely related to a velociraptor than a human being.
The warlock screamed as she attacked him, shattering his leg with a single blow. She charged straight over his fallen, writhing form, wings spread, aiming for the second warlock. He back-pedaled frantically, chanting something. Blue light crackled around his weaving fingers.
Rose’s iron-hard beak hit him, full force, square in the crotch.
Apparently not even a warlock could do magic under those circumstances.
The dancing sparks faded into nothing as he folded around himself. And from behind Rose, that winter-wail voice spoke again. A different word, this time.
“Free.”
Rose cowered into the snow as a frost-white shape bounded over her. Foot-long claws like shards of ice extended. The warlock never stood a chance.
Rose took one slow, careful step back, then another. The creature didn’t react, fully occupied with its prey. She crept back another pace.
A scrabble of sudden motion made her freeze. The other warlock was madly trying to flee on hands and knees, sobbing, his broken leg dragging through the mounting snow.
“No,” he cried, as the creature’s antlered head jerked up. “Nooooo—!”
His scream ended as bone-colored jaws closed. Red drops scattered across the snow, steaming.
Rose held very still.
A long white tongue ran over the lipless maw. The creature’s head wasn’t just bone-colored—it was bone, a stag’s long, eerie skull. The spreading antlers were wider than Rose’s car. Icicles clung to the branching tines.
The antlers dipped, as the creature nosed along the ground. Nothing remained of the two warlocks but a patch of red-stained snow. The monster licked it up hungrily, crouched on all fours. Its body was bigger than a bear, but lean as a wolf. Rose could count every rib through its ragged white fur.