Novels by Alison Hart

/-Alora-/A blast of light blinded him for a second, but did little to arrest the rogue's momentum. Within seconds he was on his feet, snarling, his yellow eyes aglow with malice. He lunged for Randall first, claws outstretched, but Randall was too fast.These two had collided in a bone-crushing fashion, and I heard the sickly crack of bones beneath the weight of their clash. Randall was strong, but this rogue wasn't any wolf; he was more feral, more dangerous. I could see it in his eyes. This was no mere pack warrior; this was a hunter, a predator bred for destruction.But it wasn't the rogue I had feared.From the darkness behind him, a figure emerged—silently deadly. The air thickened with an energy that seemed to crawl across my skin; the temperature dropped. A presence far darker than that of any Lycan, it was something more ancient, something born of shadows long forgotten.I stepped backward, my heart racing against my chest. What was that?"Alora!" Randall yelled urgently and

/-Alora-/The shaking beneath my feet had somehow, in a troubadourial way, moved to my gut, where cold fear had firmly installed itself. Lyanna's words just hung in the air, a warning of sorts—something more was to come, its echo running through the tissues of my bones.Randall did not stop. His hand shot out and pulled my arm toward the tight tunnel we'd entered through."Move," he growled, and I knew he was taut with speed. Firmly, he grasped me, not painfully, as if I was the last link to his reason in this madness.I didn't need a lot more help along that line. From the moment Lyanna spoke the word of the Wight and its illegal union with me, every sense in my body screamed that danger was closing in on me from all sides. My heart drummed against my chest as we threaded the twisted path, the air clotting with every step we took away from the center of the room.But Lyanna was already well ahead, her glowing stick throwing long, twisting shadows across the crude stone of the walls.

/-Alora-/It rumbled out of the growl, low and threatening, turning my gut into knots. Lyanna stiffened, the staff in her hands shining brighter to cast sharp shadows on the damp walls.The one too-familiar sound of fear scratching its way up my spine—but this time, it wasn't from the rogues.Stay behind me, she whispered; not even her voice was audible over the beating of my heart.Yet the growl was even colder than the chill in the air, the further it echoed, and it seemed like the very cave recoiled from what lay in the darkness. Lyanna's barrier shone dull behind them, closing the door and cutting off all means of easy flight."Is it. one of them?" I asked, my voice shaking."No," she answered sharply, "it is another thing altogether."And then, a beast had emerged into the faint light her staff allowed: stooped, wiry-limbed, its frame hung with dull, matted fur, its eyes glowing a strange amber. Not a wolf, but something twisted, a gross mirror of what might be when submitted to

/-Alora-/The growl rumbled through the woods, its chilling sound running down my spine like a blade. Randall tensed beside me as his head whipped toward the sound.Lyanna merely stepped back, her violet eyes flashing unhurriedly as she peered into the darkness."They're closer than I thought," she whispered almost to herself."Who's closer?" I said, tightening my hands to stop the shakes.Rogers," Randall said shortly. He turned to me. "Stay close. Do not act unless I tell you.His tone was tinged with command, raising my rebellion, but before I could argue, the woods burst into action: shadows dancing between the trees, light and planned.“We’re surrounded,” Lyanna said, her voice steady.The first rogue launched from the shadows, straight for Randall, who met the attack with deadly accuracy, his body changing mid-motion into that of his wolf form: a tall mass of black fur, muscles rippling. Tearing into the rogue's side, his claws brought a painful yelp ringing into the night."Go!

/-Alora-/From the darkness, there were only distant yells that were fading deeper, but a looming danger was as impalpable as the smoke.Tears welled up in my eyes as we began to notice each step; our feet submerged in the soft, wet mud that was the ground in this forest.Randall proceeded to the front, being very careful to overly emphasize every single step he took as well as to hunch his shoulders. From a corner, one could see the beginning of a smoldering anger well concealed from plain sight.“Are you expecting that they will return?” I said that, changing the tense silence.He didn’t turn to look at me. “Of Lucius it should be said—otherwise he is not—that he is not a man to nurse his hurts for more than a few minutes. He will return, and he will bring more wolves.It should have been a response that made me uncomfortable, but it didn’t. Rather, it made a spark deep in the ashes of my soul. “Then we fight,” I repeated it, convinced.Randall came to an embarrassing halt and quick

/-Alora-/ The trees surrounded us entirely, and the darkness of the forest pressed down on us. Randall stepped a bit in front of me first, stiff and coiled like a spring, preparing to snap into action.My wrists were painful from the ropes I was tied with before now, a type of remembrance of the confinement, but the feeling faded in the background.What occurred previously did not matter to any of them while the present was poised on the verge of an abyss. “You race through the woods always, like you have been chased by death,” I questioned in a strong tone that could be heard in the deafening quiet that followed. Randall was silent for a few seconds. He stepped down a bit awkwardly, and I managed to get up exactly behind him and then had a glimpse of his shadowed face as he turned slightly to look at me: he had a narrow face and high cheekbones.“Someone is behind us,” he murmured, barely lifting his voice over the sound of the wind flowing through the woods. For a minute my hear