Rowan was tired. Twenty-five years of running did that to a god. One step ahead of the feds, a step and a half ahead of the military goons, and three steps ahead of Ellie, the self-righteous Beacon of Light who had made it her personal mission to lock him up forever.

  Arizona had been a safe zone—his well of power, his hunting ground, his home. But safety never lasted. The law always caught up, and the last thing he wanted was to end up on one of Ellie’s little “justice retreats,” where eternity meant exactly that.

  The sunset cast streaks of pink and violet across the sky, but he barely noticed. The last twelve hours had been one long, chaotic disaster—Animal Control, a squadron of javelinas, and an ice cream truck, of all things. Now? The interstate. A train rumbled south toward Tucson, its deep hum drowning out the steady drone of traffic on I-10.

  In his coyote form, Rowan watched for an opening to cross the highway from a copse of Palo Verde. That very morning, he had decided to abandon Arizona and set out for California. He had stalled—partly due to self-inflicted chaos, but mostly because he wasn’t sure what would happen if he left. His power was tied to this land. Stepping away from it felt like stepping off a cliff.

  Rowan thrived on trouble, but only the fun kind—the kind with pranks, unexpected turns, and a bit of poetic irony. This wasn’t that. This smelled like divine politics, the kind that ended with people dead or worse—trapped. He had no interest in finding out which.

  The uptick in surges of chaos magic—magic from his domain—left him with the gut feeling there was conflict among the local magic users.

  Then, this morning, he saw them.

  That eerie stillness. A disciple of the Beacon of Light. Rowan spotted the man—sharp suit, precise movements, an air of judgment that clung to him like static before a storm. Where there was one, there were always more. Ellie’s goon squad never traveled alone, which meant the city was crawling—maybe with the FBI, maybe with government-issue thugs. Maybe worse.

  That was his cue.

  He’d dodged them for twenty-five years. No way in hell was he rolling the dice on a lucky twenty-six.

  And if Ellie’s people were here, Marcus—the god of power, her enforcer, and occasional boyfriend—wouldn’t be far behind. They didn’t always see eye to eye, but when it came to hunting down threats, their people worked disturbingly well together.

  But not them. Never them. Just their followers, their agents, their disposable soldiers. Rowan frowned. Ellie wasn’t the type to stay out of a fight. If she could come after him herself, wouldn’t she?

  He sneezed when the draft from a passing car caused a small whirlwind of dust to drift over him. Spotting a break in the traffic, he stood from his hiding place and stretched. Two more cars were approaching, and after them, a large enough break for him to easily cross the entire interstate without risking causing an accident or getting run over.

  A voice whispered into his mind—soft, urgent, and impossibly close. Please help her.

  Rowan stiffened. That had never happened before. Trickster gods didn’t get prayers. He wasn’t the kind of god people worshiped—hell, he wasn’t even sure he counted as a god most days.

  He shook his head, ears twitching. Maybe he’d been a coyote too long. Maybe he was finally losing it. But the voice pressed in again, wrapping around his thoughts like a vice.

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  Help her.

  The urgency hit him like a cold wind, but it wasn’t just the words—it was the weight behind them. Desperate. Directed at him. Like someone out there thought he could actually do something.

  His fur bristled. The approaching cars were swerving. The lead car, a beat-up old Toyota Corolla, was being forced off the road by a newer, sleeker black Mercedes SUV.

  And in the backseat of the Corolla—big, scared eyes. A little girl.

  The voice surged again, sharp with panic. Please!

  A glint of steel caught his eye on the road ahead—a nail, likely fallen from one of the nearby construction sites.

  Rowan never interfered. Not because he couldn’t. Because the universe didn’t let things slide.

  But the kid. The voice. The gut feeling.

  Before he could talk himself out of it, magic surged. Air currents twisted. The nail spun. The Mercedes’s tire exploded in a burst of bad luck and perfect timing. The already swerving vehicle slipped off the pavement onto the loose gravel and skidded down the embankment into the scrub brush.

  Rowan’s tongue lolled out.

  It wasn’t about power. It was about consequence. The universe didn’t care how much effort it took to twist fate—it only cared how much the story changed. A misplaced nail? Small ripples. A botched kidnapping? Tidal waves. And fate always demanded payment.

  He could already feel the tension coiling in his gut.

  Shit.

  Rowan saw the Toyota turn off at the exit a half-mile down the road. The brutes from the crashed Mercedes were crawling out, already assessing the damage.

  They wouldn’t give up. Not the type. He should do something about that, but the backlash was already surging, and he had bigger problems.

  Then the backlash hit—sharp, electric, and unforgiving. A bolt of lightning detonated behind his ribs, searing through him. The universe had settled its score. He’d saved a child, but the scales still needed balancing.

  Rowan barely had time to register it before he spotted the price.

  A small dog—either a Boston Terrier or a French Bulldog—darted onto the road. Of course. The universe had a sick sense of humor.

  A semi-truck was barreling down the interstate, its headlights a wall of merciless light. The driver had no chance of stopping.

  No.

  Rowan lunged.

  He reached the dog and, as he scooped it up, shifted from coyote to human, curling around the animal as steel and sound bore down on them.

  The semi’s grill filled his vision, a gleaming wall of death. Instinct took over. He hunched his shoulders, knowing it wouldn’t matter.

  Then—impact.

  Sound. Fury. The world blurred in a rush of motion and pain.

  He didn’t feel the impact so much as experience it—colors, pressure, the roar of wind as he tumbled, skidding across the gravel and into the ditch.

  His body didn’t respond. Nothing hurt. That was the first bad sign. No pain. No anything. No connection to his limbs. He’d been knocked around before, but this felt different—wrong in a way that hollowed him out from the inside. Panic surged as he realized he couldn’t feel anything but the weight on his chest. Was he dying? Could he even die?

  A small whine. The dog.

  Rowan blinked at the sky, dazed. The ache from the magical backlash subsided, leaving only the dull emptiness of a broken, paralyzed body.

  The universe had collected its debt.

  “I didn’t see you. You came out of nowhere,” a panicked voice stammered. The truck driver stumbled forward, phone in hand. “Don’t move. I’ll call for help. Just—Oh god! Don’t move.”

  “Not going anywhere,” Rowan muttered between wet coughs.

  The resonant female voice spoke again—this time, thick with relief. He thought he could hear crying.

  Thank you. Thank you for saving the girl.

  “No problem,” Rowan whispered.

  A heavy weight dragged his consciousness down. The sunset blurred—crimson and gold smearing together. The hum of traffic, the distant rumble of the train, all faded.

  Darkness took him.

  And for the first time in twenty-five years, running wasn’t an option.