Blood Runs Cold

Chapter Eighteen

Thick smoke billowed from between the trees. Had it been the summer and not raining, Chris might have suspected a wildfire. But it was pouring and had been pouring for hours, any tinder, even in the thickest part of the Preserve, would have been soaked through.

He looked towards Peter and fought the temptation to look back towards the hidden group following them. "Parrish?" He asked in a hushed voice, low enough that even he could hardly hear. There was a dryad ahead of them, it wasn't one that he remembered from the night Stiles was taken. He didn't want to risk them hearing anything of their plan.

If the dryad was alarmed by the smoke, they didn't show it. Chris supposed that emotions were difficult to show when your face was essentially a chunk of wood with no facial features. Even expressionless, he would have expected them to have hurried up at the very least. But no, they continued on at the same unworried pace which meant one of two things.

Either the fire starter was already taken care of or the dryad was confident that it would be taken care of before the group got there.

Peter shook his head in the faintest of motions. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then he paused, as if he reconsidered it. After his pause, quick as a flash of lightning, he darted forward and dug his claws into the wood of the dryad's neck. Before they could even react, Peter ripped the wood apart, silver sap pouring from the splintered wood.

"Change of plans," he said as he threw the now lifeless chunk of wood to the ground. Chris knew that internally, Peter was trembling in fear. He could just start to feel the heat of the flames against his skin and to Peter, fire had never been a friend. But his hands were steady and his eyes were clear and filled with a fire of their own as he looked towards Chris. "Unless some camper left their fire unattended in the downpour, it seems that Stiles has started the party without us and I don't think it's polite to keep him waiting."

——

So maybe using his hands as the final component of the fire starting spell hadn't been the best idea in the world. Sure, the entire grove was on fire and three of the dryads were already ash thanks to the number of sigils he had sketched out into the dirt, an unquestionable win, but there was a teeny tiny problem with it.

Namely the massive burns all over his hands and arms, all the way up to his biceps. Sure he had knocked out a good chunk of the dryads but his chance of personally taking any of the others out was about zero.

The pain of the burns still hadn't quite registered in his brain, the adrenaline thrumming through his veins didn't let it parse quite yet. He wasn't looking forward to when it finally hit him, but if he survived long enough to suffer through the pain and healing, well, he wouldn't complain. At least not too much.

Stiles let out a low snarl as he inspected the grove. The fire was continuing to spread, pushed on by the rain. The more soaked the trees got, the harder they burned. It felt like a furnace in the grove and the air was thick with smoke, enough that he idly wondered if werewolves could choke to death.

"Ungrateful child." Oh great, Ilara was still alive. He was hoping that he would have already turned them to ash with the first wave because they seemed to be one of the stronger dryads. But of course, because he was leaning on luck, it gave him a big middle finger and left the room.

"How long did it take you to figure that out?" Stiles snapped back at them. "Was me repeatedly telling all of you that I didn't want to be the pet of a psychotic unicorn and watch my home be turned into a shitty magical forest not clear enough for you?"

Ilara looked furious. Well, about as furious as a faceless slab of wood could look. Their posture was tense, like they were ready to pounce at any second and rip Stiles apart limb from limb.