“Get out of here,” Casrian growled at her.
She couldn’t leave him alone. Not with two of the things. He could yell at her later.
She stepped to the side, trying to get a clear shot, which was difficult because the witch hunter kept planting himself between her and the beasts.
Come on… Come on… Just a little?—
The one on the right shifted and she fired. She’d tried aiming for its eye, but it flinched at the last second and her arrow glanced off the side of its head. It did little damage, but it pulled its attention away from Casrian for a moment. She reached for another arrow as it swung its head her way.
Her hands were shaking so badly she lost her grip and the arrow fell to the ground. She grabbed another.
Casrian’s sword slashed across the other’s neck, taking its head clean off its body. He looked so calm doing it, his body moving in sure, practiced movements, graceful as a cat as he followed through on the strike and spun to face the next threat. She only had a second to admire the sight before the other creature lunged at her. She fired again and this time her arrow lodged through its throat. It made a gurgling roar of pain but kept coming on.
She stumbled back, tripping over a branch and falling on her ass. She lost her bow and grabbed for her knife.
Casrian spun around and drove his blade into the thing’s back. The tip of the blade exploded out the front of its chest. The big body shuddered and dropped to the ground.
She scrambled to her feet, knife clutched in her hand, panting, expecting it to keep crawling toward her even with a hole in its chest, but it was well and truly dead. It took her body several stuttering heartbeats longer to accept the fact.
She was shaking. Her skin cold and sweaty at the same time. She couldn’t seem to move at all.
Casrian’s gaze swept the area around them. He flicked the viscous black blood off his blade and then cleaned it with a rag he withdrew from his pocket. He threw the rag on the corpse and gathered her arrows. One shaft had broken and the head of another remained inside the shoulder of the beast when he pulled it free, but he reclaimed what he could before stepping neatly over the corpse between them and coming to her.
“You weren’t hurt?”
She shook her head, although she was still only half-convinced of it.
Casrian helped her up and positioned himself between her and corpses. She blinked and drew in a shaky breath.
“Rowan?” He frowned at her.
“I’m all right. I’m all right.”
It wasn’t like last night. She wasn’t going to fall apart on him again.
“We need to move.” He squeezed her arm and turned her back toward the camp. “I told you to run.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you behind.”
“You need to obey my commands. If I tell you to run, you run.”
He scowled into the trees as they approached the camp, like something might attack them again at any moment.
“You think there’s more of them, don’t you? How? You said a witch didn’t make more than one familiar at a time. That they didn’t hunt during the day. That sunlight burned them.”
He didn’t answer her questions, just continued to drag her along like a disobedient child. “I never should have brought you out here.”
“You wouldn’t have made it this far without me.”
“I’d have managed.”
He led her around a fallen tree and hurried her back to camp. When they reached the campsite, he released her and nodded toward her bags.
“Pack your things. We need to go.”
She bent to grab the blanket off the ground. “Did you see any sign of your men?”
“No.” He took the blanket from her and moved to the horses. “But those creatures were out this far from the nest for a reason. They were hunting something.”
