Whatever the hell is out there, our horses currently think that snuggling up to a huge fucking dire wolf is the safer option.
And why is she even staying so close? Elska doesn’t give a fuck about me.
‘Kyor?’ I whisper.
His jaw tightens. ‘Unbonded dire wolves.’
My blood chills. ‘Here?’
‘Here,’ he confirms grimly. ‘Stay behind me.’
A bush ahead shudders. Another rustles.
My heart is thundering, and I draw my own blade.
We’re safer on the ground, I realise. Considering what it is, it’s a miracle the horses haven’t bolted already, and if a wolf brings down one of our steeds while we’re on it … there’ll be no getting out of that alive.
‘Move slowly,’ I whisper to Caz as I guide her down to the ground before following her as quietly as I can. Benny, having seemingly thought the same, has already dismounted and is gesturing in the direction of the rustling.
Yellow eyes gleam out from the shadows – six pairs, maybe seven – glowing like embers in the half-light. As the canines emerge, there’s no doubt what we’re seeing. Dire wolves, but leaner than those I’ve seen before, ragged and wild in a way I struggle to believe Elska ever was.
Their lips curl, exposing terrifyingly long incisors. They must be desperate to have ranged so far from Afaven Forest.
One steps forward – massive, scarred, its fur patchy, its eyes unfocused. A creature unfettered. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Feral.
It fixes on me.
Of course it does.
My magic pulses unsteadily in a thrum under my skin, answering their snarls with a flicker of cold that blooms through my fingertips.Fear is making the ice stretch out, but if my magic flares in the wrong way, I might start a fight rather than end it.
‘Rose,’ Kyor warns softly.
‘I know,’ I whisper, but my anxiety spikes and ice continues to crack and grow across the ground anyway. I can’t stop it – don’t know how to.
Elska lets out the most terrifying, aggressive noise I’ve heard from her yet, and her stance is clear: Fuck. Off.
Yet rather than taking the warning, the lead wolf lunges.
Kyor intercepts it mid-air, steel flashing as Ruben lunges towards Caz and me, knocking us out of the way just as another wolf barrels towards us. Elska slams into it with such force that it collides with a tree only a few feet away from where Caz and I are sprawled on the ground. As it howls in agony, true chaos erupts.
Kyor moves like a storm given human form, precise and lethal. In the depths of the forest, he can’t risk calling down lightning. He’ll start a fire that could kill us all. Instead, Ruben fights beside him, messy and furious and somehow always exactly where he needs to be.
And I … I need to do something. I will not cower while the others fight.
I push myself back to my feet only to draw the attention of two of the other wolves. If their attention ever left me, that is. At the sound of their snarls, my magic surges, begging to be released, but I can’t. I can’t let it free when I don’t know what it’ll do. Not this magic anyway.
Hope flickers within me. There are plants around us. No vines, but maybe … I try to pull at the grass, to extend the blades the way I did with the herbs in Ruben’s kitchen. But while my magic works, the curling grasses do nothing to the animals. Nothing but aggravate them.
Their teeth snap at their ankles and they free themselves with nothing more than a shake of their paws, once more setting their sights on me.
‘Please,’ I whisper pleadingly, just as I once did in another forest to another wolf. ‘Just back away now. I don’t want to hurt any of you.’
They’re starving, desperate. I understand that all too well, and I don’t blame them in the slightest. I truly don’t want to harm any of them.
One of them falters, as if it might have actually understood me, butas its partner’s eyes narrow, I realise it was foolish to hope such a thing. It leans back on its hind legs in a motion that can only mean one thing. It’s going to lunge. It’s going to attack me. And not only me, but Caz.
Caz who didn’t need to come here with me, who’s still by my side even though I’m responsible for Llin’s death.
