Extraits

Prologue

THE VIOLIN’S CHORDS ROLLED through the melody like warm honey, and Zoey started towards the lulling notes.

She needed to know where that music was coming from.

She needed to know who was playing it.

Somehow she knew that she needed to see the musician.

As her feet followed her ears through the forest, the canopy of trees and shrubs parted like a gateway to some other world and revealed a tall, handsome stranger. He stood, either unaware of Zoey’s arrival or simply unhindered by it, leaning on a tree and drawing a worn-out bow across a beat-up violin. He wasn’t singing—he didn’t need to—but the lyrics sounded all the same in Zoey’s head as she drew closer with bated breath. Closer: the music—his music—beckoned her closer, revealing more of him as she advanced. His hair, the same rich brown as the earth around him, was long and unkempt; falling over his brow and eyes, which danced to his own tune behind a pair of lazy lids. She needed to see those eyes. A tug of longing and need hastened her step as impatience washed over her body, and she pressed her hands over her chest, unsure what to do with the new sensation.

She watched him lift his head from the chin rest, and the curtain of chestnut hair parted to reveal a bestial gaze that locked on his fingers as they prowled across the neck of his violin. As the lyrics continued to echo inside Zoey’s head, she watched as his mouth silently reflected the words; she couldn't help herself as she continued towards him, needing to be closer to this man. She felt as if she would die if she couldn't close the distance separating them.

Only then, once she was close enough to touch him, could she sense what he truly was:

A theriomorph!

A savage!

Or so she’d been taught…