Edith swore viciously beside her. “We don’t have time for this pissing contest, Arthur. We can help—”
“Then help by making sure my people are alive when I get back,” Arthur snarled. “Lavinia, Kiara…fine, stay, gods help me. The rest of you go. Now.”
“You don’t order us,” one of the Juneau witches began.
Lavinia cut her off with a sharp gesture, “We move,” she said. “He’s right. We need healers and more wards in place in town. We’re not ready for a fight. Dani—”
“No,” Dani said, voice high with fury, “I’m not running because he can’t get over himself.”
“This isn’t about me,” Arthur ground out, “it’s about you. And Aurelia. And the fact that if you’re in this clearing when those things hit, I will spend the entire fight watching you instead of their throats, and we’ll all die for it.”
That landed like a slap.
“So I’m just a liability now?” she demanded. “Is that it? Your great weakness?”
“You’re my mate,” he said, low and raw, “that’s what you are. And I cannot”—his voice cracked, he forced it steady—“Icannotlose you again, not days after I finally—”
Another howl split the air. Closer.
Fenred barreled up beside them, already shrugging off his coat. “Alpha?”
Arthur didn’t take his eyes off her. “You take her,” he said, “Dani, Lavinia, and whichever witches aren’t prepared to fight. You get them to the compound. You do not let anything touch them. Understood?”
Fenred’s jaw tightened, “Understood.”
Dani stared at Arthur. “I am not five,” she said, “you don’t get to send me to my room because you’re scared.”
“You can hate me for it later,” he said, “right now you get out of this valley alive.”
“Arthur—”
He stepped in, hands bracketing her face for one dizzying second. His eyes, wolf-bright and desperate, locked on hers.
“Dani,” he said, “go.”
The bond surged, hard and painful, the command in it as much instinct as rank.
Anger roared up to meet it. Underneath, small and hateful and unwanted, something else stirred.
Fear.
Adrenaline. The memory of hybrid teeth in the stories. Of Kiara’s voice saying,They’re learning.
She thought of Aurelia, back in town, thinking the worst thing that would happen today was a boring morning with the other kids.
If something got past this line… if something alreadyhad—
A snow-blind witch with no battlefield training wasn’t going to be the one who turned the tide up here. She knew it. He knew it.
She still hated it.
“You’re a bastard,” she said, voice shaking.
“Aye,” he said, “nowmove. Fenred—”
Large fingers closed, firm, around her elbow.
“Come on, Luna,” Fenred said, “we’re wasting time.”
