I enjoyed writing this one. Finished it today. Shadow makes an appearance.

A boy's corpse was on a bed of russet leaves. From the fang marks in his neck blood oozed out to mix with the dark dirt. His skin, milk white with droplets and his blue eyes still held fear. No pulse in one so young made me feel dizzy. Why did they choose him?

I felt a warm hand on my shoulder and turned to Sam. I returned a smile before I bent down to examine the bite closer. Bone was visible; whatever had attacked had intended to kill. The scent of roses floated around us.

'Sam, I think we should leave.'

'Why?'

'It wasn't a vampire and now with this scent in the air, I doubt it was a Wendigo either…'

'I can't smell anything, Cel.'

I stood up and stared at Sam. My nose felt clogged as if I was drowning in floral perfume. I gestured for him to follow and started to run through the dense trees.

Twigs snapped underneath our feet, as I emerged at the edge of the woods I heard a pained scream. Skidding to a halt, I turned to see Sam being dragged up into branches by something that looked like the fingers of a witch in a fairy-tale book.

'Sam!' I yelled as I stretched my wings and soared upwards.

A wrinkled face with no eyes faced me as I landed on the branch. Sam's eyes were closed and a raw mark circled his neck. The thing pointed its twisted appendages towards me and thorns shot out. They struck my eyes, I scrabbled to clutch the branch as it screeched.

BANG!

Its piercing screech reached a whole new octave. Darkness was in front of me. I inched forward on the branch until my forehead connected with something hard. Sam? My fingers trembled as I placed my hand on whatever was in front of me. A clammy forehead met them. I sighed.

'Alright you son-of-a-bitch, come and get it!' Dean's voice rang out below.

My stomach knotted as I felt my heart increase. The overwhelming fragrance of rose was filling every pore of my being. It made me feel beyond nauseous. A quiet groan from Sam encouraged me to place my wings over him, to shield him from anything else that could take advantage of our weakened states. The pain in my eyes was excruciating, but I knew if I let out a scream that thing would come back to finish us off… If it hadn't already got Dean.

'Celeste,' a voice spoke somewhere above me.

'Shadow?'

'Yeah it's me. What happened?'

'I don't know, we thought we were hunting our common, run of the mill monster, we were wrong.'

I felt his hands on my shoulders and I could feel the edge of his sneakers against my hips. With my eyes forced shut I have no idea how he managed it, but he somehow flipped me up and into his arms without falling from the branch. Instinctively I had my arms looped around his neck, as his weight shifted I stopped him by pointing out, 'What about Sam?'

'Once you're on the ground I'll watch over him, I promise. I know what that thing is and I know its habits – it's too preoccupied with hunting Dean to care right now.'

'You know what it is! How?'

'I like to know what's a part of our exclusive world, better prepared than not, right?'

Setting me on the ground he blew something into my face that had heat, my eyes flew open as the stinging vanished. He was already gone so I started to charge through the woods to get to Dean.

As I pushed through the bushes I saw him. He was being held against a tree, the appendages were wrapping themselves tighter and tighter around his neck. Without a pause I lifted my hand and cast a flame to set the monster alight. It released Dean and turned to my direction, smoke and fire billowing from its shoulder. Shit.

Suddenly, Shadow was beside me with his fangs bared.

'Get them and go.'

He covered me by placing himself between me and the monster, sidestepping as I ran round in an arc to reach Dean. I flew with Dean to collect Sam from the branch and used my teleportation to arrive straight inside the bunker. From exhaustion I crashed and we slipped across the floor.

'I can finally breathe!'

'How… can… you even… speak?' Dean wheezed as he held his throat.

'Because I didn't nearly get choked to death.'

We both exchanged a smile and then turned our attention to Sam who was worryingly quiet.

'Sammy?'

'Sam, can you hear us?' I asked as I moved across the floor to him on my kneecaps. Once by his side I placed a hand on his back and tried to focus in on his vitals.

'How is he, Cel?' Dean asked as I sensed him trying to move closer to us.

'I'm not picking up anything that's concerning and that odd marks gone, but I don't like how quiet he is.'

As if on cue Sam started to cough and his eyes flung open. I managed to dodge a punch by throwing myself onto my back.

'Cel?' Sam looked at me with confusion as I sat back up and raised an eyebrow.

'A second slower and I wouldn't of been. How are you feeling, Sam?'

He groaned and rubbed his forehead. 'Weird.'

'I think we'll make that a full house, what the hell was that thing?' Dean chipped in as he stood up. We followed suit and I placed a hand under Sam's arm to help support him as he rose to his hooves, I mean feet.

'Shadow knows.'

By the time I filled them in, there was a knock on the bunker door. I hopped up the stairs and opened it to let Shadow in.

'Monster?' was my first question.

'You spend too much time with the Winchesters.'

I continued to look at him until he gave me the answer after a sigh. 'Dead.'

'Awesome. Nice work,' I said as I continued down the steps.

'Don't I get a reward?'

'Being alive and being allowed inside the bunker, isn't that enough?' I smirked as he looked at me seductively before I added, 'No. Cut it out, we want details.'

'Details of what?'

'That thing,' Dean spoke as if he were explaining something to a child, which was pretty accurate where Shadow was concerned. He could be slow at times.

Shadow smiled and seated himself at their long table. 'Alright, but you all owe me.'

'We owe you bupkis, start talking,' Dean demanded as Shadow glared at him for a second before he winked at me. I shook my head which was my way of telling him that my patience was wearing thin also.

'It's a Flangry.'

'A Flangry?' our group echoed in unison and I had to fight back the laugh that wanted to erupt from my throat.

'Well you know how fairies love their flowers, right? This creature is a hybrid child of a fairy, a vampire hence those enormous fang marks left on that poor boy's neck, and some kind of tree spirit or witchy thing which explains its odd appendages. Oh and it weakens its victim with magic leaving a circle before it inserts it fangs.' As Shadow finished his explanations Sam's fingers subconsciously lifted to his neck. That had been a close one…

'A threesome creature. Well you learn something new every day,' Dean said as me and Sam laughed largely due to disbelief that such a thing could exist.

'So that's why I smelt so much rose.'

'Yep, but only creatures can sense it. That is how the Flangry marks its territory, warns off others and says this is my prey.'

'Makes perfect sense, that's why you guys couldn't smell anything.'

Sam smiled and gave my shoulder a squeeze as he passed. He knew I saved his hide.

'Well, why don't we go out and celebrate?' Dean suddenly announced much to all of our surprise.

'Really Dean?' I asked.

'Yeah, let's go to some fancy fast food joint and stuff ourselves. You too fang-boy.'

I grinned at Shadow as I started to run towards the stairs. We rarely celebrated a hunt like this and I was looking forward to spending some downward time with the people I cared about.