Oh gods. She probably thinks I did this, too.
The bulls stood on their hind legs, shifting back into human form. Then, with bloodcurdling shrieks, they hurtled through the forest, sprinting straight toward us.
My horror grew as some of them veered toward the trees, scrambling up the trunks like spiders, moving unnaturally fast.
“We can’t stay here,” I yelled. “There are too many of them.”
We’d be overrun within seconds.
Fuck. One skinwraith had been enough of a challenge. But fifty or more?
We were dead.
I grabbed Tara by the back of her vest, then hurled her back. Seren would never forgive me if I let anything happen to her sister, no matter how brave she was. “Run,” I roared. “Get me a fucking sword, Seth!”
This time Seth didn’t hesitate. He yanked one free of its sheath, then tossed it toward me.
The Vangar man was the first to fall, the skinwraith dealing a savage bite to the back of his neck, then lifting the man’s body and crushing it against a tree. A swarm of others crowded the body.
“They’re going to kill every last one of us,” Tara growled, then stormed headfirst toward them.
Amahle released a battle cry and followed her, sword in hand.
Seth and I remained behind them, but the skinwraiths had already reached Seth, who plunged his sword into one of their chests.
The man might be my enemy, but right now we had to be allies. One more living soldier against the dead.
“Decapitate them,” I shouted, slicing the head clean off a skinwraith. The body exploded into that black mist I’d seen before. “It’s the only way to stop them.”
Seth didn’t question me, his sword cleaving off the head of the skinwraith he’d stabbed. No black mist followed, but the skinwraith’s body fell and stayed on the ground.
Amahle and Tara struggled though, trying and failing to protect the other Vangar woman as the skinwraiths grabbed her.
“We have to help them,” Seth called to me.
A blur of screeches and black mist, rotten body parts, snarling teeth and the clash of steel overtook every thought as Seth and I fought our way back toward Tara and Amahle, trying to reach them before they were fully surrounded.
“Don’t let them get between us,” I yelled at Amahle and Tara, who fought back to back. Maybe a Vangar technique, but most definitely a Pendaran one. Brogan Ragnall had trained his daughter well.
Sweat dripped into my eyes as Seth and I closed the distance. Four of us, versus the remaining skinwraiths.
A sudden scream cut through the forest. Behind us, where we’d come from, a small group of Vangar emerged—but these weren’t warriors. They were younger. Candidates.
The skinwraiths lifted their heads, their dead eyes locking on the weaker prey.
Not a chance they’d make it out alive.
We needed something more than our combined skills and strength.
Divine intervention. Magic. A protection spell.
If my gifts hadn’t been Sealed, I might have done something. Even the damned vuk’s powers from Seren’s oath wouldn’t be enough to help.
… but the vuk wasn’t the only one to give me power.
A mad kernel of an idea formed in my mind.
Seren had gifts—latent ones that Lucia had hinted more than once hadn’t been fully trained—and I had access to her through our bond. I knew how to open and close the pathway that allowed us to communicate now … but what about one of those other paths I’d visualized in that space we shared?
